What really surprised me here was how horrible a character Jin was. He spent most of the episode staring at Nagi’s butt or trying to look down her shirt… or being so frightened of panties that he nearly had a panic attack. He’s basically a spineless voyeur. Hell, he was even going to feel her up while she was sleeping. So he’s arguably a date rapist in training too.

Then Hashi-hime chimes in with the following, in Aroduc’s comments, just to make our life more interesting:

Clearly, and by a million miles, the best show of the season so far. Yamamoto Yutaka, the director (creative force behind Suzumiya Haruhi, fired as director of Lucky Star after four episodes) appears to be the comic genius I thought he was. Brilliant comic timing and storyboarding (he directed and storyboarded this first episode himself). And excellent animation. The beautiful movements, especially of hands, must have blinded me to any dodginess. All I saw was excellence.

You have a blog, Hime, so BLOG IT. If I were not delayed by anime club today, I would not even see it!

UPDATE: Otou shares at least some of Aroduc’s dislikes:

Jin could be another good lead for the season, but when he tries to sneak peeks at the sleeping Nagi, is he being a normal teenager or a closet perv?

We’ll know probably by ep.8.

放送されなかったね。。。
結局、放送ではお詫びも告知も何も無しですかい。

I got into the habit of just skipping everything I don’t understand right away, so my first reaction was… “owabi mo”? What the…?

It turned out that the BS11 station suddenly cancelled Kannagi (NSFW, as always at Sankaku Complex), and the main message was actually in the first sentence “housou sarenakatta ne” (was not broadcast). Damn the passive voice.

I’ve already settled on picking Kannagi next for the season, but this helps.

Kannagi is drawing particular attention among the many anime shows that started broadcasting this month because of the people behind the work.

Director Yutaka Yamamoto is famous for his production of the final dance scene of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, which greatly fascinated otaku. He also directed the early episodes of Lucky Star before setting up his own animation production company. Kannagi is the first anime he has directed since the launch of the company.

Scriptwriter and author Hideyuki Kurata is in charge of the structure of the series, which makes the framework of the anime. He is known for Kamichu!, an anime about a middle school girl who turns into a goddess, and the R.O.D animation series based on his own story.

Hopes are high for Kannagi as the two giant figures in the anime industry are working together for the first time. It is also becoming a topic of discussion that Toru Honda, who is famous for his book Denpa Otoko, is also working on Kannagi’s scriptwriting.

I was unable to find the Japanese version on the Yomiuri website. But the name of the writer (Makoto Fukuda) sounds suspiciously familiar.

In the post, Matthew talked about the the season, and this is what he wrote about Kannagi:

Yamakan FTW! After being fired from KyoAni, director Yutaka Yamamoto tries to prove that he’s at the level of director, and succeeds so far. Best animation quality this season. Easy to do since he took some KyoAni staff with him to form Ordet.

So, I’m not alone in noticing the animation. It’s nice to have an affirmation, and so unexpectedly.

UPDATE: The plot thickens. Amazon does not actually sell Kannagi, it’s “available from these sellers”, and the sellers say: “Shipped from RightStuf.Com! New in shrinkwrap, licensed release!”. So, is it even more exclusive? Nice going, Dark Lord.

Also, I had second thoughts in regards to true tears, and noticed that RACS lists it as a set. This means that Kannagi did not necesserily leapfrog anything, since only one volume was announced. RACS offers the true tears set for $28.98. This is only $2 more than one volume of Kannagi. I am putting the preorder in. Big savings, better anime, and I spite TRSI with its exclusivity all in one move.

UPDATE MOAR: Oof, shipping on these things bites: $7.99 with USPS (total $36.97). And I have Amazon Prime, so Kannagi would’ve shipped free. But true tears is still cheaper than Kannagi scattershot.

UPDATE: DiGiKerot told me on #animeblogger that “Bandais full press release for their release of Kannagi does mention that the two disks will be bundled together for a general release next year, so the RightStuf deal is a time-limited thing”. He later pointed me to presser itself that says: “Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 will be made available as a 2-set edition for the general market sometime next year.”

UPDATE: R in RACS is not happy, which is understandable right until the time he throws this weird justification:

It’s not even the ‘exclusive’ thing that upsets me, it’s the way you did an end run around everyone, prepositioned your assets, and then snuck the damn thing out at the last minute like thief in the night.

I just cannot see how prepositioning one’s assets compares to thievery, but then I’m not a retailer.

STEVEN SAYS THAT “”like a thief in the night” means “sneaky and quiet and unprincipled”. It doesn’t necessarily imply thievery as such.”

LATER, Evirus explained by e-mail:

Actually, “like a thief in the night” invokes the Bible verse that cautions how suddenly and unexpectedly the return of Jesus will be and has nothing to do with being unprincipled at all.

I suppose it’s an appropriate simile considering Kannagi is about a deity.