Anime Progress Report: Playing Catch-up

I was able to finish Love Lab this year.  Thoughts of “Why did I stop watching this again?” were running through my mind while having fits of laughter.  Ah, how many shows in 2013 made me laugh?  Not much (because I did not watch much hahaha).  After finishing I rewatched the episodes with Maki Makio in it.  Such fun!  😀

I have also finished Maoyuu Maou Yuusha.  Actually, it was more like a case of “it’s only about 12 episodes and it’s not annoying so why not finish it?” thing.  Although some foreshadowing of things to come in the ending episode was interesting, more often than not I found the show boring.  I don’t think the economics thingie was well handled–innovation blah3x now there’s progress–but it didn’t feel interesting.  Maybe it didn’t blend well for me, like the way management principles from Peter Drucker did with Moshidora.

For the backlog, there’s still To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S, and Yondemasu Yo! Azazel-san Z.  I don’t know if I will finish them this month though.  And who knows when I’ll able to start on the 2014 winter anime hahaha.

On the manga side, I’ve been trying to read through the Chihayafuru raws.  But the surprising blocking points are the small fonts.  @_@  I have been trying recently to do more reading of raws and it’s really annoying to be faced with small fonts.  Either I can’t make out the kanji, or I can’t make out the furigana (if I don’t know the kanji).  I know I’m whining but yeah it’s my blog, help me vent my frustration.  Onegaishimasu.  😛

I also read (whenever I remember to check) Space Brothers.  I suppose my Japanese-language level is not good enough when encountering complex or technical terms, but I do still get the gist of most of the other dialogue.  As a consequence I have stopped watching the anime.  One could call that a surprising side effect.

Actually I was going to write a post about anime dropped because of the manga, but yeah, laziness set in.  Maybe I will be able to write it in the future, but for now, ja!  🙂

Weekend is near once again

It’s not Friday night yet but here I am itching to write something, or anything.  Hahaha!  Of course the backlog posts are still in the backlog and until I find the motivation/energy to finish those these progress reports will have to do.

So I just finished a rewatch of the 1st season of GITS SAC.  And before that the 2nd season of GITS SAC.  And before that I watched GITS Solid State Society.  It’s backwards but hey, that’s how I started.  (Though it really must have started when I saw that new GITS trailer.)  I was tempted to buy a newer copy of Salinger’s book and re-read it.  Thankfully, I was able to resist spending impulsively.  I shouldn’t have entered the bookstore, period.

On the currently airing shows, only Chihayafuru, Space Brothers, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S, and Yondemasu Yo Azazel-san Z are holding my interest.  I seem to have gotten past my initial obsession with Chihayafuru when I decided to read ahead the manga.  At least now the wait doesn’t have to be so excruciating.  As for Space Bros it’s going fine though I wish they’d just skip the childhood flashbacks of the side characters.  Yondemasu Yo seems to have featured another angel, and well at least it’s still funny.  Railgun has gone darker in its themes and I have added to my misery by reading the wikipedia entries.  I don’t like the direction it’s going but I’m not the author so I can’t complain too much. I haven’t bothered to get the recent episodes of Red Data Girl.  Not that interested anymore.

In other news, there’s a ‘climate map’ that maps trending manga, anime and other Japanese cultural exports per country in Asia.  According to the map, #1 trending in the Philippines is Pokemon.  Though I’m not really that surprised, I’m not sure how accurate that is either.  If I had more time right now I’d probably explore it more but maybe another day.  Still it would be interesting to know how they came up with that.

Links:  Asahi, Asia Trend Map

Anime Progress Report – Spring 2013

It’s Friday once again!  While waiting for the next Chihayafuru episode, let’s have a progress report!!

Stale Bread:
Fate/Zero
Psycho Pass
Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

– Even though those series have long finished, I have not been in the mood to watch them for some time now.  They’re still stuck in limbo.  I’ll try to end one of these shows this long weekend.

Fresh Bread:

Red Data Girl – I hated it at first, because lead girl looked useless.  I’ve stopped at three episodes.  I’ll check this out again when I feel like it.  On hold.
Suisei no Gargantia – So far I am liking this.  But I am not so gaga over it that I immediately watch what comes out.
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S – Not yet in excitement mode.  When Chihayafuru ends my focus will probably go over to this show.  But I am really glad that Misaka and company are back!!
Valvrave the Liberator – When I saw the first episode, I thought:  What!??  It’s another f@cking Gundam-style opener! And with annoying characters galore!  Maybe I’ll find better things to do than watch this crap.
Yondemasu Yo!  Azazel-san Z – Funny as ever.  I just hope nothing offends me in the future episodes.

Currently I’ve been trying to get some more raw manga reading for my Nihongo studies.  Right now I’m deliberating on Case Closed.  I feel that it’s almost perfect–however the bad quality of the raws might not be good for my eyes in the long term.  I’ll try to find another manga that will be easier on the eyes.

That’s it for now.  Ja!

P.S.  For comparison to the quality of previous year, here’s Spring 2012.

Re-watch galore

Amidst the pressure at work, I am drawn to blogging rambling again.  What a turn-around!

It seems that this early part of the year has been more about rewatches than new anime.  Of the currently airing anime, only Chihayafuru, Space Brothers, and Zetsuen no Tempest have been able to really capture my interest.  No wonder I’ve been on a rewatching spree lately.

So for the past two days I have been rewatching choice episodes from the 1st season of Chihayafuru.  I’ve already forgotten parts of it–at the Queen match I thought Yuumin (Yamamoto Yumi) had won.  My memory of that match’s outcome was wrong!  So even with the reigning Queen’s handicap (the fact that she became fat it was the biggest surprise of all), she still had enough skill/stamina to defeat Yuumin.  That’s how good she was.

The other anime that I have been rewatching recently is Aria.  I started off with Aria The Animation.  Now I’m currently stuck in the first few episodes of Aria The Natural.  This reflects the fact I don’t like The Natural that much.  But I don’t want to start with Origination just yet–I dread the part where Alicia retires.  Just thinking about it makes my eyes cloudy with tears.  ^_^;

I’ve also been on and off with my rewatch of Glass Mask, I’ve stopped in the middle.  I also rewatched Thermae Romae and Hatarakiman.  On the live-action side I’ve rewatched Nodame Cantabile (yeah all of it), and the first few episodes of Zettai Kareshi and Orange Days.  I also rewatched the first few episodes of Yondemasu Yo! Azazel-san.  And the series was both revolting and funny as I remembered it.

Aside from all the rewatches, I’m trying to restart my Nihongo studies again.  It’s been years since I took a JLPT exam, and my neglect has caused me to forget a lot of what I had learned back then.  Of course the basics are still there, but it will take some time to relearn the kanji I’ve forgotten.  Wish me luck.

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In other news, it seems that there will be a new Banner of the Stars novel.  Unfortunately I cannot read the source material even if I wanted to (if I hadn’t stopped my Nihongo studies who knows).  But I hope they make another anime.

Vampire Knight is also ending, though I stopped caring about that manga a long time ago.  But I’m still interested in how it ends.

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I guess that ends this week’s ramblings.  Till next, ja!

My Top Anime for 2011

Happy New Year everyone!

This post is very late because, well, I had a awful start to my Christmas vacation–caught a fever and have been feeling sluggish ever since.  Haven’t done much and the result is delay in the things I wanted to do.  Adding to the delay was my purchase of a new monitor that led to rewatches and viewings galore…

Anyway, I have got to say that 2011’s crop was better as a whole than 2010’s.  The top 5 contenders each have the quality to be considered the best show of the year 2011 for me.  To illustrate the close fight, the five categories that I used to compare the shows (namely Characters/Entertainment Value/Story-Plot-Ending/Music/Animation) were divided among 4 of the top 6 shows.  The 2 shows that didn’t get a first place ranking had 2 second-place rankings each.

My viewing has picked up a bit over 2010’s 14 shows.  Maybe because as I said earlier, the quality of the shows for 2011 was actually better than 2010’s.  Am I watching more because of this?  Hehehe.  For 2011 I’m supposed to be ranking 19 shows, but Fate/Zero, Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam, and Chihayafuru are still far from finished.  So I have decided to bump these 3 to 2012, saving me a few moments of deliberation with the 2011 ranking.  Hunter x Hunter is also unfinished, and I doubt if I really can complete it.  With these unfinished shows the ranking process would’ve been tougher.  🙂

I have also decided to exclude movies except for Break Blade.  If I did not, well, Sayonara no Tsubasa would have been this list’s best anime–blowing away the competition hahaha…

Looking backward and forward: Spring and Summer Anime 2011

Again better late than never.

I may not be blogging that much, but I am watching anime, a lot of it now, in fact.  As I am still new at work, I don’t have a lot of responsibilities yet so I’m not that busy at the moment.  For the past few months I have divided my time between anime, books, Internet, and other stuff I didn’t get to do like shopping left and right (obviously getting paid means spending power hehehe).  Of course I don’t spend everything because it’s important also that I replenish my savings that got depleted when I resigned without a new job.

Now enough of that RL talk.  Since I wasn’t able to do the Spring impressions, I’m combining it with a post about the Summer anime season.

Winter casualties and Spring 2011 picks

A new anime season approaches!  An excuse for another update!