Praise be to Goddess Madoka!

Okay, since this is going to be inevitable later on in whatever post I make about Madoka’s finale comments’ section, I’m just going to open this up to the readers first and deal with it early.

Why do you like or hate Madoka Magica’s ending and what is your justification for your stance?

I would really like to see how the opinions are really divided amongst the viewers. For the time being, you can count me in the “like” camp, but I realize there are flaws in the ending.

P.S. I sincerely hope no one actually takes the religion jokes about Madoka that seriously.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

[...]a particularly exclusive group is the bloggers you could call intellectual aestheticians, who unironically judge anime based on its adherence to (their understanding of) the conventional canons of high culture.

And those are just some of the good parts.

Oh god, that was probably the best meta post about the animeblogosphere I’ve read since good ‘ol tj_han. It’s amazing how mt-i manages to parody their tone and language, yet still never does descend in to wall-of-text “tl;dr” style too much. I found that probably the best part of the post lol. Not forgetting how he ended the post itself!

Seriously, give it a read. It’s worth the 15 mins.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Second installment. Continued from yesterday.

Male Character of the Year: Kasugano Haruka, Yosuga no Sora

You honestly think anyone else would do? This is a guy who has to finish what he started.

Other candidates:
Hino Akiharu, Ladies vs Butlers
Sai Akuto, Ichiban Ushiro Daimaou
Kohta Hirano, Highschool of the Dead

Female Character of the Year: None

Frankly, I don’t think there was any female characters this year that was quite outstanding enough to win this award.

Trap of the Year: Meh, fuck this.

Zettai Ryouiki of the Year: Serizawa Fumino, Mayoi Neko Overrun

Seriously, I could watch those for hours. Too bad they got entirely forgotten after that.

Senpai of the Year: Morishima HarukaAARRRGHHH, Amagami SS

Nyan nyan.

Yandere/Onee-san of the Year: Yasuri Nanami, Katanagatari

I really pitied the three ninja dudes.

Imouto of the Year: Tachibana Miya, Amagami SS

In a year full of imouto-moe shit (including Yosuga), she remains the only imouto to truly embody the ideal imouto (that I don’t feel like fucking). Honest.

Twins of the Year: Tortilla Ritos & Salsa, Shukufuku no Campanella

The show wouldn’t have bee half as entertaining as it was if they weren’t around.

Queen Bitch of the Year: Saikyou Tomomi, Ladies vs Butlers

Honestly, who else? Ayako Kawasumi was amazing with her.

The “Even though the show was shit, this episode made me cry” Award: Episode 10 of Angel Beats!

Yui ;_;

The “Oh fuck, shit suddenly turned serious” Award: Mafia no Woto

I certainly did.

Top Commenter of the Year: Haesslich.

“There’s another spambot, Kuro.”

Memorable OP themes:

LOVE X HEAVEN, Ladies vs Butlers

Magical Twinkle Sky, Mahou Shoujo Yue Negima! OAD

Hikari no Senritsu, So-Ra-No-Wo-To

LEVEL 5-Judgelight-, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

Complication, Durarara!!

SOMEONE ELSE, Working!!

Help!! -Hell side-, MM!

Now loading… SKY!!, Asobi ni Ikuyo!

REALOVE;REALIFE, Ichiban Ushiro Daimaou

Kimi no Mama de, Amagami SS

Memorable ED themes:

Kigurumi Wakusei, Hanamaru Kindergarten

Kimi no Kirei ni Kizuite Okure, Kuragehime

Cross Over, STAR DRIVER

Brave Song, Angel Beats!

Memorable Seiyuu Performances:

Kana Hanazawa

This year is truly her year. Not only did she got multiple roles each season, she also did quite a lot of OVA’s and movies as well, so there was no shortage of my enjoyment of her voice this year. Some of her standout roles this year for me were Amano Touko (Bungaku Shoujo), Kurashita Tsukimi (Kuragehime), Sonohara Anri (Durarara!!) and of course, Kuroneko (Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii wake ga nai).

Yuuki Aoi

Despite a limited repertoire, Yuuki Aoi sure has a really moe voice that she can skillfully handle for maximum HNNNNGGGH as well as enough range to be versatile enough to be pigeonholed in a certain role. Her most standout role this year to me was Korone (Ichiban Ushirou Daimaou), but maximum HNNNGGGH was achieved as Yagyuu Jubei (Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls). Next year looks set to be her year as well, with two main voicing roles already confirmed for next season.

Itou Shizuka

Morishima Haruka, ’nuff said.

Toyosaki Aki

She’s been slowly discarding that “airhead” character type her voice seems to fit the most and gave some really great performances at the later half of this year, such as Momo Belia Deviluke (Motto To-LOVE-ru), Chaos (Sora no Otoshimono Forte) and Bonbori (Otome Youkai Zakuro). Still, she does manage to be really annoying when she tries, like as Hyakka Ryouran’s Kanetsugu Naoe

Satomi Arai

She’s been slowly getting roles back after that craziness of Kuroko in Railgun and this year we’ve been hearing her quite a lot. Aside from Kuroko, her turn as the narrator in Ookami was about the only thing that kept me from dropping that show like a rock. And her turn as Hata in Seitokai was pretty hillarious as well. While not a lot of people will like her husky voice, I’m still a fan of her because of how she manages to use her voice for maximum hillarity.

Tomatsu Haruka

I can’t say she’s been really active this year, but she’s on this list for one reason, Princess Hitei (Katanagatari). And she’s also had a prominent role as Sakana-chan (STAR DRIVER), not to mention contributing to a pretty popular insert song as well.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Well, that wraps up my highlights of this year.

This is mostly from anime actually, because if I included other media, I’m not gonna finish any time soon.

My hopes for next year:

• Stop with the imouto-moe shit
• Magica Madoka to be actually decent.
• More original anime titles
• Less shitty adaptations
• Enough time to watch shit since I’m going to be a working member of society already.

That’s all.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

You know the drill.

The really good:

Katanagatari

Cheerio!

Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu

SHAFT gets it right third time round.

Youjouhan Shinwa Taikei

The last three episodes made the show worth it.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Decent anime adaptation for a really great seinen manga.

Yosuga no Sora

This is how eroge adaptations should be done.

Motto To-LOVE-Ru

Even surpassed the manga at points.

Kuragehime

Noitamina’s really great this year.

The enjoyable:

• Durarara!! — I can’t believe there’s headless moe now.
• Hanamaru Kindergarten —Will Tsucchi ever get to confess to Yamamoto-sensei properly?
• To Aru Kagaku no Railgun — Biribiri
• So-Ra-No-Wo-To — Amazing grace~ how sweet the girls
• B-gata H-kei — Blue balls all around.
• Working!! — SAM WAN WAN SAM WAN WAN
• Ichiban Ushirou Daimaou — How to go against the world… in style.
• Amagami SS — Kneepits and bellybuttons with stalkers.
• Shukufuku no Campanella — Very fuwa-fuwa.
• Mitsudomoe — I like how their teacher was forgotten over time.
• Seitokai no Yakuindomo — Sex jokes extraordinaire!
• Shiki — Blood and staking arc was well worth it.
• MM! — Set a landmark for a XEBEC show; almost no panty shots.
• Shinryaku! Ika Musume — Mini Ika Musume’s would’ve invaded us in no time.
• Tantei Opera Milky Holmes — BOYOYON~ BOYOYON~ BOYOYON~
• Cat Shit One — Those damn bunnies.
• Henzemi! — Akira Ishida talking about poop.
• Shakugan no Shana S — I think the lack of Yuuji made this OVA for me

Decent enough:

• BakaTest — Good for a few laughs and forced memes.
• Chu-Bra — Talking boobs
• Ladies vs. Butlers — Mai Nakahara vs Ayako Kawasumi.
• Kobato — Made it through thanks to Kana-tan.
• Arakawa under the Bridge — Good for a few laughs.
• Arakawa under the Bridge^2 — Good for a few more laughs.
• The World God Only Knows — Kana-tan killed me.
• Fortune Arterial — Could have been better.
• Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls — Jubei was such a good girl ;_;

Disappointments:

• Ookamikakushi — They had a girl with a giant scythe, man!
• Angel Beats! — ”Maeda sure doesn’t know what pacing is even if it was a 380-pound albino gorilla wearing the Brazilian jersey emblazoned with the words “PACING” and blowing a vuvuzela to each ear. “
• Mayoi Neko Overrun! — Lack of zettai ryouiki after episode 1 killed it.
• Ookami to Shichinin no Nakamatachi — Sad when the narration is the biggest highlight of the show isn’t it?
• Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin — I still don’t know what I watched.
• Strike Witches II — Forced drama at the end ruined it.
• Asobi ni Ikuyo! — Wasted potential for epic.
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt – Too experimental, even for Gainax.
• Sora no Otoshimono Forte — I am still mad.
• Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii wake ga nai — *sigh*
• Otome Youkai Zakuro — Did they really have to put in the incest angle in there?
• DtB: Gaiden — Went full emo and still didn’t explain shit.

Notable Movies:

• TTGL Lagaan-hen
• Evangelion 2.22
• Bungaku Shoujo
• Macross Frontier: Itsuwari no Utahime
• Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Movie the 1st
• The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi

Did not finish:

• Seikon no Qwaser
• Dance in the Vampire Bund
• Heroman
• K-ON!!
• Kaichou wa Maid-sama
• Nodame Cantabile Finale
• Highschool of the Dead
• Legend of the Legendary Heroes
• Giant Killing
• Senkou no Night Raid
• Sarai-ya Goyou
• Nurarihyon no Mago
• Iron Man
• Bakuman
• Kimi ni Todoke

So… 61 shows started this year, 46 completed. Pretty good I guess.

Despite a lot of the griping I did this year, I did finish a lot more shows than I expected to and even enjoyed a lot of them, although most of them probably aren’t going to make any lasting marks on me.

Movies were probably the best thing this year though, since it seems that production committees and creators are realizing that TV anime isn’t that big and lucrative a market anymore, so it’s better to pool budgets and resources in to making something that is at least guaranteed to sell twice (theater seats and DVD/Blu-Rays). Of course that is bad news for us dirty gaijin anime thieves… since we’ll have to wait an inordinately long amount of time for movies to be out. Sigh.

That being said, I’d like to thank my readers for keeping up with me another year in this blog (oh gods, it’s been more than five years now) and I wish all of you a Happy New Year 2011. Here’s to hoping for another fun year ahead for us all, especially in anime. A number of original shows are seemingly coming out next year and I do hope they all do good for us.

Stick around tomorrow, (hopefully after the hangovers have cleared) for another post about the year gone past.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Yeah… okay, sure…

Excuse me while I appreciate the irony sarcasm joke whatever this is.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Simply put, I’m bored of this whole seiyuu thing. Extremely bored. Horrors(!), you say? Well, it’s not the first time and it certainly won’t be the last I ever say anything like that; my interest tends to come and go in cycles and at the moment I’ve hit a deep trough and I certainly don’t see a V-shaped recovery on the cards. Looking through these rose-tinted glasses, I offer pithy complaints about how the seiyuu industry in 2010 is 腐ってる and populated by shitty people who can’t even get the basics of voice acting right (no concept of enunciation or phrasing and heck, some of them don’t even possess voices that are suitable for anime or game characters) as reasons for my boredom.

I don’t know (and I don’t want to know) how many cocks Omigawa Chiaki has sucked to get where she is or how many Yukichis Music Ray’n are stuffing down producers’ throats to get their seiyuu employed, how dumbass agencies are looking at the ￥ signs and fast-tracking hopelessly out-of-depth teenagers even if they posses the talent of a farting mongoose, how more than 60% of shows are moe crap that only requires seiyuu to produce voices as freakishly high-pitched as possible, preferably while inserting random nyaas and nyaans into every other sentence, how some of the best seiyuu from just 3-4 years ago are already being sidelined (Nakahara Mai, Saito Chiwa, Ueda Kana etc etc) in favour of the kids. Heaven help us if Taketatsu Ayana is supposed to be one of the best young things the industry can offer.

This season is a good example of how annoying the whole situation has become, with voice acting in some autumn anime so atrocious that I’d be willing to watch Cantonese dubs just to escape Omigawa’s voice (alternatively, I guess I should just stop watching Shaft anime). I can name maybe 2 or 3 performances worth looking out for (Nakamura Yuichi in OreImo, the leads in Zakuro). The only time I’ve found myself getting really excited about an anime cast in recent memory was when I was marathoning Black Lagoon (Koyama, Toyoguchi & Tomizawa are so effin awesome!)…and none of those seiyuu are getting regular anime jobs these days.

Well, honestly, the quality of the “popular” seiyuu nowadays are pretty much an open secret anyways. Now it’s more about looks and marketability than real voice acting talent. Heck, I think most wannabe-idols prefer to go down the seiyuu route as a shortcut to popularity/success rather than actually being one to cater and please the masses of raving otageis abound. And then you also get people like O-mi-gawd Chiaki. I wonder who the fuck thought she was good. Guess the face distracted them too much.

I’ll have to say, while I share the same sentiment at the dearth of talent in the “popular” seiyuus nowadays, I’m not as negative as j1m0ne is. There are some nice voice talents about. I genuinely like Kana Hanazawa, as overused as she is, but at least she is truly working out as a seiyuu instead of branching out in to the idol-latry shit (looking at you there, Sphere, Mu-Ray). And Sphere also has some okay people I guess. Aki Toyosaki and Haruka Tomatsu at least sound decent enough most of the time. But I still hate their singing and “idol” exposure.

Truth to be told, I actually don’t care for much about the “idol” aspects of the seiyuus nowadays. I understand it helps to supplement their meager income, no wait, it’s probably their main income in any case, but I hate the focus on their looks and “personalities” more than anything else. I really don’t care about their personal lifestyle. Sure hearing about them burning a kettle or two or having a fake wedding makes for fun news, but that’s not my focus.

And I really miss the elder generation of female seiyuus. I’m not saying we should lapse back to the time when Noto-sama was in about 5 shows per season per year and Hocchan was like the rage of the industry, but they’ve been getting so little leading roles of late, I’m just watching random shit where they are minor characters with about 6 lines per episode just to hear them. Even Bitch Tsundere Queen Kugimiya’s missing lately too. Now, those were voices that really made me moé for them. Thank god Mai Nakahara’s gotten a lifeline this season with Otome Youkai Zakuro.

Even the male seiyuu are hell lot more consistent in quality than their female counterparts. Although, I guess being a male seiyuu means that:

a. You are going to be worshipped by legions of fujoshi’s and constantly play BL fantasies.
b. You are going to be generic male harem lead no. 3457.
c. You are relegated to random minor role– oh wait Takehito Koyasu has the monopoly on that.

Still, when I think people like Mamoru Miyano are better than half his female colleagues this season… it sure shows how bad things have become.

I guess we shouldn’t totally blame this on the poor girls though. It’s generally a fact that anime is slowly declining in quality over the years and the number of productions every year keeps going down. I guess it’s just a confluence of a lot of factors.

tl;dr female seiyuus nowadays sell body instead of talent, therefore they suck.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Cake is always welcome

Nova started and omo followed up.

Which inspired me to think of this way; why is the genre called “slice-of-life”?

Sure, it usually attempts to present characters in a daily life based setting, but usually they can lean to more fantastical (Kino no Tabi, Mushishi) or sci-fi-ish (ARIA, YKK) bents.

In fact, the Japanese term for these types of shows are “kuuki-kei“, that roughly translates to “atmosphere/ambience-type”, and that term is really quite spot-on as a term describing those types of shows.

So why don’t we all just call it “ambience” anime? It’s much more accurate and a better term to describe them than “slice-of-life”; which in most cases, usually isn’t quite correct for most of them. Truly, their selling points are the settings and the pull they have towards the viewers, rather than the characters or the plotlines.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

You know what, I am sick of moralfags looking down on people because they read scanlations online. More than 60% of scanlations probably don’t have even have an English market, and the English market wouldn’t even have existed if not for scanlations.

I am sick of moralfags preaching about buying original merchandise of a certain area when they themselves pirate almost everything else. Then they also look down on people for reading scanlations online.

I am sick of the whole “TEH INDUSTRY IS DYING BECUZ PEOPLE STEAL STUFF FROM THE INTERWEBS!” gospel. God knows the industry wouldn’t have actually come this far without the Internet acting as a catalyst to spread it further.

I am sick of outdated Intellectual Property laws that seem to protect the creators but are actually used to enrich the rights-holders (in many cases the recording/publishing/production company) without ACTUALLY fairly giving the REAL creators their share.

I am sick of the moralfags that just pretty much act like asses just because their buying power is greater than people in third world countries without any regard for how much inequalities exist in the world economy.

Fuck all these. I do and will continue to buy original merchandise that I deem worthy enough to justify the enormous expense. Otherwise I am quite comfortable with reading scanlations and watching fansubs/raws as they come off the Internet. If there’s anything really good, then I WILL SUPPORT THE FUCKING INDUSTRY EVEN IF IT’S GOING TO COST ME HALF A MONTH’S WORTH OF LUNCH MONEY. I’m not just gonna crawl under a fucking rock just because I don’t have enough money to BUY EVERY FUCKING CONTENT I CONSUME.

Otherwise, fuck off and get the fuck off your fucking high horse before you start preaching about SUPPORTING THE FUCKING INDUSTRY. Are you even sure you’re not consuming any illegal content at all? Think about it, moralfags.

</rant>

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

… are you one of them?

So after a day and sufficiently rehabilitated to be cohesive again, I’ve noticed that Amagami SS 03 is one of the episodes that are great enough to generate a real division between the watchers to categorize them as “love it to bits” and “hate it like hell”. Case in point for the latter: Chaos Tangent.

What I think is that these people are merely losing the point of the show.

No, really. Amagami SS is a romantic simulation game adaptation and it makes no sense why people should be expecting true tears level writing and plot in it. And to make it worse, then express negative opinions about it when it does not reach that level. I don’t think or expect even for a second that anime on the lines of Amagami’s origins would be “deep” or “thoughtful” or even cathartic at its best.

No, shows like Amagami are meant for lowest common denominator(LCD) consumption and it is excelling at it exceedingly well by daring to be adventurous in it approach. Obviously it’s not a formula that will impress everyone, but for a show targeting the LCD, this is actually quite an upgrade from the other shows worth calling “crass and vacuous” that are competing with on the same basis.

I really have no idea why people can’t just enjoy it for what it is and expect the sky out of the ground. Some people really need to lay back on the expectations a lot and get in touch with the reality of the anime scene nowadays. Besides if they want “depth” and “emotions”, there’s always shows like Shiki to watch. Cut back on the sugar if you have diabetes, iykwim.

————————————————————————————————-

Right, on to the episode.

I think my initial post has already expressed much of what I thought of the episode. Why I chose the “nyan nyan kougeki” scene to showcase was merely because it had the strongest impact of the whole episode to my mental health. God, listening to Itou Shizuka doing that is pure aural sex in many ways.

Of course the “behind the knees kiss” was pretty damn innovative as well and kudos to the writers for thinking that up. At the least it’s not as crazy as armpits but still sensual enough a spot to make an impact. It’s right at the doorstep of the “no-enter” zone! Now that’s really “zettai ryouiki” (oh god they better not put her in to one later!).

Otherwise this episode isn’t really much to say about apart from Junichi proving that persistence can pay off if you’re going for the right person (plus points if you can do a proper “puppy-dog eyes” impression too!). While Morishima might be a real tease, she ain’t unbreakable and she’s not really being a manipulative bitch or whatsoever, so I’ve considerably warmed up to her after this week.

I just hope it doesn’t all come crashing down at the next episode…

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Pic unrelated to content.

Recently there has been a huge hoohaa about the fact that certain countries are actively prosecuting and/or passing bills that are criminalizing 2D lolicon pornography materials (“materials” because it covers a wide range of media). I don’t think I need quote examples here, since anyone who is reading this is probably of the same demographic that cares about this issue at hand.

To be honest, most of the news really does not affect me, mainly because I am living in a country that is more concerned about other bread-butter issues, and we lack the free time from the politicking around to actually care about stuff like this. Therefore, I am pretty disconnected as to the impacts of those laws being passed in their country of origin. That’s not to say I will be not affected if those are passed, since it would make the materials harder to procure and to enjoy in a guiltless manner, haha.

Well, my personal stance is pretty passive about this issue, but I do think that censorship of any material, will in the end, backfire and cause more damage than it would have been if it wasn’t. For one, it’s almost impossible to police thought “crimes” (until someone invents mind-reading machines, and then I wish I will long and dearly departed by then, because it would fucking creepy if someone snooped through my head), and many “crimes” aren’t really criminal as such as just being anti-establishment. I think history has a loooooooong story to tell us about the “thought criminals” and how exactly such people have prevailed in the end. The current situation on the Internet is one such example of their legacy, but even now that is being threatened from many fronts.

I really think that the true issue behind the debate of criminalizing 2D lolicon art isn’t about the content. If you ask me, it is terribly hard to justify those materials, even if you claim it’s just merely a fantasy and for private consumption bla bla bla, but about the possibility of the act of censorship being extended to whatever subject that doesn’t conform to the current establishment’s ideals. China is a pretty good example of the future of the Internet if the worst case scenario happens, so it’s actually funny how people who can condemn China’s censorship policies can and will support the ban on 2D lolicon art.

Perhaps I am not exactly the right person to elaborate on this topic, mainly because I am not as much of a fluent debater as I would like to be, nor am I a very passionate activist for my beliefs and thoughts. Komidol of the Orange Farm has written a very long post explaining how to campaign against this, and Yes to Freedom is another good resource for anti-censorship supporters.

Finally I would say, rather than blocking access to undesirable material, it is better to educate people from young about the best way to differentiate good and bad. After all, if you give a man a fish, he will be full that day, but teach him how to fish, and he’ll never go hungry again.

©2012 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.