アニ・ノート

Lelangir was making noises about meta and confusion (no permalink, it’s mostly Twitter [1]). The confusion, however, is only that of implicit definitions and multiply meanings. Certainly the very concept of an anime blog is a meta towards the anime (Meta Level 0). When I quote, say, Beta-Waffle, it’s meta towards another blog (Meta Level 1). And if I blog about the way I quote Beta-Waffle, it’s Meta Level 2 — which is what the “meta” category is here. It was never documented until now, of course. In general, categories suffer from poor definiton and slippage. The “bost” category means “my personal crusade for DRM-free DTO” (although it is also a memorial to the early DRO-minus-DRM pioneer BOST TV, R.I.P.).

Tangentially, he’s quoting Stuart Hall instead of some stupid asshole like Edward Said, which is always a plus in my book.

[1] Lelangir reminded me by e-mail that Twitings have permalinks. True, but why should I give Google Juice to Twitter when I can direct it in a more useful way, to Lelangir’s main blog? Links are the currency of blogs (Let it be known than I took this formulation from SDB).

I wonder if a commenter at Subculture (careful, Totali heavily spoils Toradora 14) is a troll or confused:

how are you able to understand japanses? i can’t watch it without subs alone. i wonder how you are able to understand all of this?

In either case, it kinda makes mockery of the raw debate.

Originally Piano was recommended to me by a reader Piyo-kun. It was more than two years ago, but DVDs are tricking down now and Evirus is on the case:

I still can’t believe RightStuf licensed Piano. I hope I’m not the only person to have bought the DVDs.

He may be. I’m counting on Netflix. I wonder how the revenue sharing works, considering that Netflix is a flat-rated subscription service.

Evirus’ description generally makes Piano sounds a bit like The World of Narue, but no worries. I am sure there’s not going to be the skirt-raising wind in space this time around.

At last! I’m later than anyone, including Otou.

The strange thing is, I don’t have anything in particular to say, despite the anime being so well regarded. It’s a decent show, and might be the best Magical Girl show I’ve seen, but otherwise it’s just a good anime and that’s it. I only noticed that the perverted squirrel was quite funny; I wish he took lessons from Boota. Bet nothing will come out of it, not even anything like in 12 Kingdoms.

A visit to Best Buy ended with picking a few volumes.

As usual, new detail comes up, and in general it’s an enjoyable experience. However, I have a very strange feeling that some scenes are shorter for DVD release than they were in the broadcast. For example, Miyuki’s eyedrops in ep.10.

I don’t even want to post another “BOST Death Watch” entry, the situation is quite obvious. So, the Crunchyroll. I do not quite understand why GONZO allows them to show The Tower of Druaga, Sword of Uruk without any in-video ads. Wasn’t GONZO on the brink of bankrupcy? Maybe GONZO counts on merchandizing fees in the future.

The episode itself was quite nice, and it looks like the show goes where it went before. Good times.

It appears to me that GONZO has developed a specific animation style with very minimal presentation. They draw as little as possible and skirt the border of unacceptable as tightly as possible. It was noticeable in the Druaga:Aegis too, but then Strike Witches came along and I forgot about it. Now the innovative cost-cutting is in full display again. I’m not sure if I approve, but then I’ve enjoyed much of Yoakena. So let a thousand of flowers bloom and watch which ones bring fruit.

UPDATE: Otou says that Fatina is “cute”. In my humble opinion, “ridiculously hot” would be closer to the mark.

Minorin was my least favourite among the cast of Toradora (mind, I stopped before seeing Taiga’s father), but I cannot help noticing the fan comic posted by Nova (among others — I saw it on 4chan before). It is something like the dreams of fanboys everywhere. So cute. BTW, is this left to right or right to left? It reads both ways!

The tears, they just keep flowing.

I wish there was a remake of it with a better artwork. Coincidentially, Sixten is a fan. One can hope.

THEBIGN e-mails with:

I actually don’t like the premise of the strip. Partly because I don’t want to see Minorin sad (yay fanboyism), and partly because I feel like that idea’s been done to death (Can’t they think of any other way to show her pain?), and worry that the anime or the novels might take that route (it’s too obvious a way to go :P).

Well, no pain no gain. The point of the strip is, Minorin must be retarded not to take the denials of the main duo seriously and check if there’s an opening, while she still has time.

In one of the weirder twists into which creators twist themselves for the advancement of franchize milking, Rumbling Hearts had an OVA. At least, unlike Manabi OVA, this one is a continuation instead of a filler driven into a hairline crack between TV episodes.

I really wanted to like Kiminozo back in the day.

After more than a year-long wait, I gave up on Netflix and watched Bottle Fairy on YouTube. It feels absorbing a lot from other series beyond the intentional parody. Most of the time it was like Hidamari Sketch, although it’s not from SHAFT.

The biggest question is, was Steven right?

I am inclined to think that although the crazy sister theory was an interesting mental excercise, it’s not what creators intended. For example, Tama justifies well within the canon why she’s “a little freaked out”. But it’s fun nonetheless.

Maybe I’m trained to make light of this kind of setup by Mahoraba (helped by Kokoro Toshokan, which made light of war), but even accepting that Steven had the right idea, the series is pretty light. Looking at it another way, the reintegration was no worse than the story of Hanana.

BTW, nice OP. Episodes are half-length for some reason.

Liked: It’s not bad
Rewatch: Probably not.

Sekirei was a fun little series that opened nicely. I was re-reading my category for it just now [1], followed links, and suddenly noticed that Steven mentioned a different cast for the Drama CD. I don’t have the old CD (it was long out of stock by the time I remembered about it), but a quick check at Wikipedia reveals that Steven was right. And what a stellar cast it was… Rie Tanaka as Tsukiumi! Was that role made for her or what? Well, we were extremely lucky to get Marina Inoue in the anime and SSS. But still… I feel like I need to get that CD somehow.

[1] I was prompted by Ubu’s flippant remark comparing Sekirei with Akikan. At first, I meant to write a combative post about Ubu’s intelligence, but on second thought Sekirei deserved Ubu’s scorn. I am reminded about it every time I rewatch it and see all the annoying faults. We need a remake by Production I.G. If Kanon got one (by KyotoAni), why not Sekirei?