SFX: Door opens

RIKA: 「旦那さまーーーっ 愛しの理科が帰りましたよーーーっ！」 == Honeey! Your lovely Rika is hoome!

KODAKA (narrates): さて、かわいい奥さんのお帰りだ。 == Now, to welcome the cute wife.

KODAKA: 「おかえり、理科」 == Welcome back, Rika!

RIKA: 「はい、ただいまです、小鷹さん！ == Thanks, I’m back, Kodaka!
さあ、お帰りのちゅーをお願いします！！」 == Now, the welcome kiss please!

KODAKA: 「はいはい」 == Yep

KODAKA (narrates): 理科の要望に応えて唇を合わせる。 == As Rika wanted, we touch lips.

SFX: Kissing

(continues) 理科は今、三人目の子どもを妊娠中だ。 == Curently, Rika is expecting our third.
けれど、いろんな会社や研究所 囲って忙しく働き続けている。 == However, she continues to stay very busy consulting various companies and research organizations.
それだけ、理科のことを必要としている人が多いのだ。 == That’s how much she is needed by many people.

KODAKA: 「今日はお腹の子、大丈夫だったか？」 == Tummy ok today?

RIKA: 安定期に入ってから大丈夫ですよ。 == Stable period of pregnacy has began, so it’s fine.
それに無理は絶対にしません。 == Anyway, I never do anything too tough.
子どもが一番大切ですから。」 == Children are most precious, you know.

KODAKA (narrates): そう言って理科がまた唇を突き出してくるので、俺はもう一度キスしてやった。 == Saying that, Rika again kissed me.

SFX: Kissing

RIKA: 「ふふ。それで小鷹さん、あの子たちはもう寝ちゃいました？」 == ^_^ So, Kodaka, kids are asleep already?

KODAKA: 「ああ。今、寝かしつけてきたとこだよ」 == Yeah. I put them to bed just now.

RIKA: 「むー、そうですか。でしたら、また起こすのはかわいそうですね」 == I see.. It would be a pity to wake them up.

KODAKA: 「明日の朝、おはようとただいまを言ってやれよ」 == Tell them good-morning tomorrow.

RIKA: 「そうします。で、いっしょにハグとちゅーも大サービズしちゃいましょう」 == Will do, and add a special hug.

KODAKA: 「そうだな。飯は？」 == Right on. Supper?

RIKA: 「食べてきました。それよりですね、先輩。 == I ate. But that aside, sempai…
子どもたちも寝ちゃってるわけですし・・・・・・」 == Since kids are asleep…

KODAKA (narrates): 理科が俺のことを「先輩」と呼ぶのは、まぁつまり・・・ == Rika calls me sempai when… well…

KODAKA: 「や、め、ん、か！」 == NO. WAY.

RIKA: 「あぁん」 == Ahh!

KODAKA (narrates): 俺は軽く理科の頭をたたく。 == I hit her lightly on the head.

KODAKA: 「まったく・・・安定期までまたちょっとあるだろ。 == Geez, pregnacy is just into the steady state.
お腹の子に障ることはできないっての」 == You’re going to damage the child.

RIKA: でもー、やっぱり理科としては、先輩の遺伝子に興味津々なんですよ」 == But, for me, sempai’s DNA is so very interesting.
先輩の遺伝子と理科の遺伝子をかけ合わせるとどうなるのか・・・ == I keep wondering what is going to happen if we combine our DNA…
サンプルは多い方がいいですからね♥」 == I need lots of samples!

KODAKA:「おまっ・・・子どもをそういう目で見るなよ」 == Wha… Don’t think about children like that!

RIKA: 「ふふっ。冗談ですよ。でも、子どもは多い方がいいというのは本心です」 == Heh. I’m joking! But I really think we need lots of kids.
「だって理科は愛する先輩の子どもだったら。何人でも欲しいんですから！」 == They are kids of my beloved. Any number is good!

This Tuesday, May 15th, FUNimation Entertainment will release the sci-fi comedy harem series “Cat Planet Cuties” and in anticipation of its release the publisher has given us the opportunity to check the series out a little early.

It is May 15th, 2012. I am having a nagging suspicion that Mr. Herera is not aware that Asobi Ni Ikuyo was streamed by Crunchy in the U.S. market, which presumably Examiner and FUNi serve.

Meat-wise, writing was uninspired, even for a retelling:

As in most other harem anime series Kio is dense and has no idea about the feelings of each of the girls, except for Eris thanks to her going into “heat”.

With the most scintillating opinion being perhaps this:

Anime fans won’t find anything really original in “Cat Planet Cuties” but it does offer plenty of comedy and girls with big breasts for fans of the genre.

I think the ’sphere is safe, thus far.

UPDATE: An early draft included an insinuation that Mr. Herera is making Chris Beveridge to quack in his boots, but does he? Let’s have a look:

The series also includes an OVA in this release, something that we didn’t get during the simulcast run for obvious reasons, and it’s a good bit of fun here at the end that involves everyone simply playing a variety of games.

The above is the only time the existence of streaming is acknowledged and it looks like an accident. I don’t know what to make of it. Chris knows his audience, in fact he built his audience over the years. Perhaps he wants his article to be self-contained and make sense many years down the road, when someone looks up a label at a garage sale.

It’s a long way from 2008, when I misjudged the series so badly. Despite ANBU having done a stellar job, Sunred is not very accessible even to high-level weaboos. You think you get it, but you don’t, not really. I should thank Momotato-sempai for putting a good word for it in his final post on 2009-1-1. He led me to discover Kayoko, and only then I began to understand what it was all about.

So totally going to Kawasaki City next time I’m in the area.

I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be PSgels this year, but equally it’s not going to be a big name.

P.S. While this post was being written, Nobar staged a modest comeback, but his advantage is miniscule as of this update. Evirus continus to lose and is very unlikely to claw it back. I’ll be glad to be wrong, but unless he can mobilize #raspberryheaven and its parent webboard, it’s over.

P.P.S. I looked it up and apparently Ani-nouto is up tomorrow against A&V. Oh boy. My timing is impeccable as usual. Also! If I win, it just confirms the biases per the above. If Team Vuc win, there’s no shame in that, they’ve got a better editorial content. Just As Keikaku (TL: “keikaku” means “plan”).

UPDATE: Just saw a comment about Karmaburn:

Have you ever wondered why newspapers have multiple columns of text? Limited width => readability. With a maximized browser window, post text spans 1355px. Set CSS max-width plz.

I am afraid I must lose his vote tomorrow. Ani-nouto is similarly unreadable on maximized browsers. Through the efforts of MellowBunny, in theory we have a proper theme available… since 2008. I never found a day to deploy it; I am not going to rush it into production overnight for a lost cause.

Besides, everyone read through a feedreader anyway. They do not even see the theme.

{Update: Could not resist trying: see bug, fix bug. Well… The “max-width” works in Firefox and Opera, but not in Chrome. Twarted by Google! {Update: Omo told me that up-to-date Chrome worked}}

UPDATE on Thursday: It’s on. Early loss is 17 to 26.

UPDATE on Friday: A tie at 125 to 125?! Also, thanks to Steven for the plug.

UPDATE on Saturday: It’s a very small and narrowing lead 175 to 162. Evirus deigned to notice his loss and he, too, tinkered with CSS. Since we’re at it, ads are part of the deal of hosting at Animeblogger, and they were intended to be “inobtrusive”. Last I asked, back when Maestro ran things, Ani-nouto pulled about $30 per month, or slightly below its own hosting costs.

UPDATE on Monday: There was an announcement that Round 3 is going to be postponed, and Nova wasted no time in making hay out of it. Undoubtedly cheating is an issue. For example, my wife and daughter voted in the poll that was won by 3 votes, and later I caught the girl attempting to use a Kindle (it was twarted before I had a chance to act by the Kindle being the launch hardware, firmware of which did not support the required JavaScript). I heard SaiMoe is being beset by proxy voting problems every year, too.

In any case, A&L are now in my feedlist, and if they continue posting good stuff, they’ll end on the blogroll, which is what the Tourney was supposed to accomplish, wasn’t it? Except that I knew about them back in 2011, but imagining that I didn’t, they would join now.

What he did post, however, was quite bold. He made a bunch of predictions:

• the main dude and alien will have a series of misunderstandings, — Hit, duh
• childhood friend might gain some traction but then lose out, — Hit
• alien girl will arbitrarily be taken away from main dude for an episode or two, and when they’re reunited, they will end up together. — Not bad
• All the while, “fu fu fu” senpai will manipulate the rest of the cast for maximum enjoyment. — Hit
• Childhood friend will either hook up with blue haired dude, — Miss

{Update: Evirus e-mailed that Hung literally used details from original Onegai Sensei for predictions.}

Also:

In a way, Ano Natsu De Matteru is a throwback to a time when anime plots were simpler. The cast represents a precisely honed set of love triangles and leaves things to sort themselves out. While it’s extremely predictable [], it’s also super enjoyable. This is like the comfort food of anime for me.

How could you leave us hanging, man?

An unknown for RP:

As for the plot, it was unbelievably real, especially to me. In some events, this was remarkably similar to something I had previously experienced, albeit she was not a crash-landed alien.

Heh. I can relate.

surprised [by] Tetsuro’s feelings for Kanna

You know, I was too. However, I think I wasn’t paying attention. There were probably some hints, like in Toradora where everything was telegraphed in ep.2 and then most blissfully missed it.

Mike:

it was a great series simply because it did everything in its ability exceptionally well. It was great with its handling of its characters; it was great with evocation and although the plot was barebones the rest were enough to carry the series beautifully.

And yes, it was better than Ano Hana.

What an elistist, even in the trolling. Everyone else tries to contrast with Toradora.

Suguru (spoils heavily):

Ano Natsu de Matteru ends – almost exactly how I guessed it would, which means the writers were probably a little predictable, but it was executed really, really well, so I can’t complain.

He rated the ending as “perfect finish in my book”.

lostty is not terribly coherent, so I am not sure if he/she even means what s/he writes:

it was for the most part fairly unique, didn’t take the fanservice route, and was very tasteful.

Very true, actually. But then:

This series tried too hard to be the next tear jerking melodrama

Goes beyond opinionating, just objectively false. Probably was on bad meds while blogging. Great hi-res screencaps at least.

Omo:

I think it’s safe to say that ultimately NatsuMachi is the distilled essence of the contribution to Toradora from the team that brought you both.

the original two series had it slightly better

I’ll confess yet again that I am no fan of Toradora; I think it’s a great show but it was nowhere near as enjoyable as the hype was. [...] I think for the handful of people who truly enjoy anime like this, are so starved that we don’t really let the little details bother us. For the rest of us, those of us who are less committed to this sub-category of romantic comedies, well, the mileage will vary on how much you like watching the distilled essence of Toradora.

And “still well short of excellent” in the end.

BTW, there’s an unknown at Metanorn, who was rather explicit comparing against Onegai Sensei. Even knew woh Ichigo was. {Update: CKS suggests that Remon literally is Ichigo, which is why she says “I am forever 17″.}

Zyl:

inushinde’s right though – this is a summer dalliance and no classic like ToraDora.

Harsh, man.

Overall, it seems that the only guy who thought before writing was Nova:

One of the strongest points of the show was that it cleverly avoided many of the teenage melodrama land mines that shows such as BRS charged head-on into, and so the entire love polygon the show kept spinning around didn’t manage to ruin the whole thing with overblown angst.

Ano Nuts always seemed to keep a bit of a distance from the teenager love problems instead of the usual failing practice of displaying them as world-crushing once-in-a-lifetime-issues, using the kind of moderation that’s pretty much vital for this type of dramatic setting.

One might argue that in the real world there’s no way everyone could have stayed friends after all that happened, but y’know, sometimes I watch anime to see a world better than ours, and as such Ano Nuts has my forgiveness.

There was much more where that come from, but I cannot quote the whole thing. He explains very convincingly why the ending was perfect, something Suguru didn’t do. Although mind, I do not necessarily agree. In particular, he concluded that the anime “wasn’t the next ToraDora”. Author and Omo versus Nobar-Zyl alliance, it seems.

Nova also had amusing comments:

Sage> No mention of Mio? I’m going to schedule your stoning for this week…

Nova> I was going to post a pic of her instead of Kanna, but most of the stuff I found was nasty :/

UPDATE: CKS joins Nova & Co with a paradox:

However, it’s no Toradora; ultimately it will probably be forgettable but fondly remembered.

Forgettable to be remembered, is it like a romantic comedy that is not a comedy? Seriously though, not being a native speaker, I just assumed that “comedy” was a signifier, brought forward by the lack of a category. Conversely, Russian did not have a category for “fantasy” and lumped it under “sci-fi” for quite a while.

UPDATE: Hung responded with a review, and he liked the ending like Suguru and Nobar did.

It’s basically a re-make of Onegai Sensei, with the same character types (but different characters). The thing that made Ano Natsu enjoyable was that it was executed damn near perfectly. The pacing, animation, humor, etc were all great. I think the one thing it lacked was a bit of originality.

But as he points out, it was a good trade-off. His previous comparison with Infinite Stratos is not too far-fetched, IMHO.

Overall, I think the anime was expertly executed. I am struggling to identify a romantic comedy equally good. I can name a few outstanding, epic love stories with a greater impact (Simon and Nia for one), but they seem not to carry the full weight of the host anime, or otherwise do not fit. And in the romantic comedy class, I come up empty.

So, good deal. However, I feel ambiguous at the messaging: the anime insists on driving home the lesson of coming forth and following the confession procedure early for the best results. This may be less problematic for teens, who have no conflicting obligations, but adults have to tread lightly here.

Liked: Yes!
Rewatch: No way, too much emotional whiplash.

BTW, the comparison list:

• Gurren-Lagann, F/SN, Nodame, Moribito, Shingu etc. etc. – focus elsewhere more or less. Nodame a strong contender though.
• Mahoraba – mega cute, but is really a twist on the harem theme.
• ef – not bad, but split stories were poorly integrated.
• Toradora – good main storyline, but flawed production: overlong with a bunch of useless filler, the build-up to the ending was not communicated well.
• Chobits – comes close in strength, but CLAMP wallows in their usual creepy too much in there.
• Honey and Clover – just about as strong, but nasty shit really; and the bad parts are extraneous to boot.
• true tears – started ambitiously, but automatically out of contention due to drop.
• Sadly, I did not complete Hatsukoi and GataKei either.

P.S. Tatsuyuki Nagai apparently directed Railgun, AnoHana, Toradora (!), Honey and Clover II (!), and Xenoglossia (wait, what). Also, had a hand in Chobits. It’s like AnoNatsu was his coda. Perfect time to retire, as he cannot possibly exceed it.

[Jatimatic] was essentially designed to be easy and “accurate” to shoot from the hip and/or single handed. You know, the way pretty much nobody actually shoots these days.

I touched upon it before, but it reminds me about shooting MAC-11. The gun was impossible to control unless I held it securely by the silencer. Fortunately, the silencer on it features a reciprocating baffle design, so it does not get hot. Still, Jatimatic cannot be worse.

UPDATE: MAC-10 is in the show (ep.3):

The introductory episodes are heavily dominated by the relationship of the protagonist, who I call “Mr. Porky” (Haruyuki), and “Ms. Kuro” (Kuroyukihime), a beautiful upperclassman who drags Mr. Porky in her wake towards the adventures. Since Mr. Porky is the viewpoint character, we get the unreliable narrator and the drop-in-the-pool exposition with a lot of things taken for granted or acknowledged and put aside for later. In the big picture, the purpose of Accelerated World is unknown, and in the small, Ms. Kuro intrigued everyone. Jonathan Tappan interptered her thus:

Let’s face it, the beautiful and popular Kuroyukihime is unlikely to be interested in Haruyuki for his fine manly body. All she really knows about him is that he has a talent for games, which she wants to make use of. She’s seductive and manipulative and she seems willing to go to great lengths to get what she wants.

I think there’s more to her than that, and, unlikely it may seem, she managed to fall for Mr. Porky. The reason for that is her past trauma (that manifested in a “hideous” avatar that we do not get to see) and Porky triggeding something in her head. Of course it does not preclude her from using him. I use my wife to pick me up in the airport, too. Peter S. posted some spoiler notes on the topic, based on ep.4.

Another valuable resource is the episodic blog of the translator for UTW at “8th Sin Fansubs”. Here’s about Haru making an inexplicable gesture of pretend horns:

Silver Crow could be a parody of Space Runaway Ideon, an ancient anime also produced by Sunrise. It’s not silver in color, but the glistering face/eye for special move is Ideon’s distinctive feature, and Ideon does have horn antennas too.

I saw someone twittering hate for Mr. Porky being cowardly and weak. It is understandable, but it’s a sentiment I do not share. I have a feeling that it only gives him a room to grow.

The biggest problem for me is how Accel World is going to be endless. It’s based on light novels, and people familar with the source claim that there’s no convenient endpoint anywhere near.

Upotte was supposed to be this filthy innuendo vehicle for dirty perverts… but it really is not. It turned out to be a comedy, and honestly I liked its comedic payload more than that of Naruto SD. Funco dealing with puberty gave the haters the excuse to lash out, but it’s entirely up to the viewer whre to focus. For me, Strike Witches (both seasons) were significantly more offensive, if we want to compare this angle. I can see myself following this show in-season, as long as the balance is on the side of the cute and silly. Thanks, Mr. Duck.

Can’t wait for a Russian girl who never washes.

UPDATE: Thomas twittered that “in the extras for vol. 2 of the manga you catch a glimpse of AK74″.

UPDATE: CKS explains things:

I even quite enjoyed a highschool comedy that went much further than Upotte!’s relatively tame innuendo. What I think got to me is the presence of the male teacher and the focus of Funco’s thoughts on him; this gave the jokes and especially Funco’s daydreaming involving him an uncomfortable edge, especially since Funco is in middle school.

The moral panic about pedofilia, whipped up by the unholy trinity of bureaucrats, church, and media, is a terrible thing. Fortunately, Upotte didn’t go into the direction of Kodomo no Jikan, or I too would have to drop it.

Spoiling a little, Funco realizes that having a sudden hot flash with strange fantasies is unexpected, and that something is up. Mind, she does not know enough to identify those as sexual fantasies. So, her first thought was to consult her best friend Ichiroku. You probably can guess how that went. But thereafter, Funco was intelligent enough (and perhaps brave enough) to go to the school nurse. That did not proceed too well either, since we’re in a comedy anime, but still – well done.