Seen at The Last Arial (hat tip to Jeff, as I cannot follow Arial because of all the trains):
A simple slice of life story about everyday events and friendship, it was brilliantly executed and featured a cast of instantly lovable characters; from the earnest Yuno and energetic Miyako to …read more
BigN finally posted a report on Hidamari Sketch, which he completed, unlike myself. It's pretty interesting, although I think he sort of bent Manabi for the purposes of compare-and-contrast.
If I can say that Manabi Straight was about the beginnings and growth of friendships and what happens before, during and …read more
Seen at Subculture:
read moreThis OVA takes place some time before the major school festival in the anime series. Oh, how I missed all of the Manabi girls. Being the slice of life fan I am, Manabi Straight has been one of my favorite anime since its airing earlier this year …
The review of "Freedom" in The Space Review seems to me an excercise in reviewing the obscure: the year-old OVA got 33 votes at ANN. Once again anime outsiders amaze with their unconventional ways to select the material. Previously, Dwane reviewed Cowboy Bebop and PlanetES, which was understandable for an …
read moreThe raw of Manabi OVA hit Tokyo Toshokan yesterday, and it occured to me that, thanks to Amazon.co.jp, I saw it before raw watchers did. Money well spent (I include the tuition for Japanese classes here too, so it was more than just $50).
read moreI'm just back from a Bunraku, or a traditional puppet theater, performance in UC Berkeley. Promoter, Peter Grilli, mentioned in the pre-performance lecture that Bunraku started in 1650s as an art for the masses, as opposed to then pre-existing theater for highly educated, and turned into art for the elite …
read moreHere's something seen at Towards our Memories, written by a guest-blogger "SDS". Since ToM is not an ad-supported blog, I'm going to quote the gist of it:
read moreThere’s a hypothesis going around that each arc of the recently-finished Gurren-Lagann pertains to an era or decade of giant robot animation …
I looked at Aoi and Mutsuki (the sequel) in order to recalibrate my scale. I thought that I bitched too much about insignificant details of jawlines too much recently, and I needed a look at bad anime.
It was surprisingly watcheable. The story was trash and I dropped it 15 …
read moreThe 08th MS Team turned out quite epic in the end; pretty much Shingu and Stellvia level of epic.
Norris is my favourite character. He lived well and died well, and is a good role model. I'd love to be Norris when I grow up. Ginyas though... gives us engineers …
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