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*Warning: Possible spoilers ahead*

This week’s post is all about anime. That’s right. After a couple of failed drafts and gut-crunching late nights, I finally told myself that the reason I’ve been delaying a post is that I couldn’t capture what I would want to say. Now, of all days, I’m determined to finally get my words right. Today is Wednesday, June 24, 2009, approximately one day after The Conduit was released (LOL). Today is the day Typhoon FERIA hit Philippine shores and today is the day I would finally write a full-blown anime-related blog post. Get ready…

First and foremost, the very reason I came back filled with ammo was primarily because I missed out on the last episode of ToraDora. I think I’ve mentioned this before and just recently, the dread of leaving out that single episode came back to haunt me. I believed back then that their sudden shift in plot left me too much in shambles for me to continue. But nonetheless, I returned thinking it wouldn’t matter anymore. It was just one episodes. As it turned out, I felt quite good at the end of that final episode 25. Taiga finally got it on with Ryuji and vice-versa. I believe it happened like that because I had already forgotten the feeling of the story up until that point. It’s because of that led me to believe that what ToraDora lacks is proper organization of their plot. If they just tweaked it a bit for a second season, it might’ve turned out better for me at the beginning.

This is probably the starting point of my grand return to the world of anime and I wasn’t wrong. I continued on with my usual shows: FMA and Eden of the East. I got my surprise last week when I found out Eden of the East’s last episode was the 11th and would only be followed up by two movies coming late this year. Eden of the East was having a nice mystery unfolding that I thought it would continue on until the plot was fully revealed. As it turned out, not all the members of Selecao were revealed and the identity of the Supporter was still a mystery. There’s also some doubt on my mind about the real identities of Mr. Outside, the supposed founder of Selecao and his mysterious “AI program”, Juiz. After a lot of deaths, missiles strikes and NEETs, I figured I’d put this one under my anticipation list of 2009. Mind you, there’s already another anime movie I’m looking forward to come the next year and that’s got to be the Gundam 00 movie.

And so, we move on to what I’ve been doing after finding out Eden of the East has ended. Well for the most part, I’ve been scouting some new stuff over at a lot of anime sites. These days I’ve dug myself deep into the mysteries of Hayate no Gotoku, uncannily dubbed “Romantic comedy”. Honestly though, I could see only a glimpse of romance in this series, but what it boils down to is its extreme parody ability. It will literally reference anything from anime to video games. I’ve had quite a few laughs from everything it has to offer. The only bad thing I would say about this system is that I don’t know everything. I’ve found myself a couple of times searching the net for the words the anime’s “trying” to censor because technically, it’s copyright infringement to do such references. It’s still funny though and I’ll probably enjoy it a lot more if I had had more exposure to the world of anime. In this anime, there’s no plot that really drives it but it doesn’t matter, because it’s freaking hilarious.

It’s probably at this point that a couple of people have started suggesting stuff to me. I mean, at school, I’ve been talking endlessly to a some guys about recommended anime and stuff. It’s something I wouldn’t believe I would’ve done in normal circumstances but there it was and I got a couple of in my waiting list. I’ll start with Seto no Hanayome, an anime I kinda rejected for a few reasons. It’s apparently the “perverse humor” type of anime which I know I’ve already experienced some time ago. At the time this was presented to me, I didn’t want this type of anime just yet. I was in a limbo between action and pure romance which doesn’t cover the “perverse humor” genre at all. I might be taking this too seriously but that’s just the mood of the moment. After rejecting this one, I was presented with another one. This anime comes in the form of different names but the name I’ll probably grow up with is Phantom of the Requiem. I’ve only got through the first two episodes and I could see this coming to be an action/romance type of anime, the exact thing I wanted. I immediately dug myself into this and I wasn’t disappointed at all. The gist of the story that I know so far is that it’s about two natural born assassins as they progress through the ranks in this company called Inferno. The first assassin is a girl named Ein and the guy you see when the story starts would be the second assassin named Zwei. Those aren’t their real names but more like placeholders for their names because they were tasked to not try and remember their pasts. That’s how the story begins and I’m curious on how it all pan out in the next episodes. The thing about this that’s holding me back though, is that the characters don’t look at all appealing to my eyes. Their animation style doesn’t quite get me unlike ToraDora did or more significantly, unlike the next anime I’ll be talking about.

I think True Tears began as a visual novel, like most romance animes do. The unique thing about this one though is that the anime is way, way different from the visual novel, manga or the light novels (not sure about the last though). It’s pretty weird that they used the name of an existing title to power this show. What’s more is that, from what I heard, the original True Tears wasn’t that good. They probably used the name to reboot their failed attempts at making something good. The end product is pretty nice though. All I could say is that this show is probably a complete blending of elements from Clannad and Love Hina, two franchises that I believe are pretty good. Clannad started out as a visual novel and is probably the best in terms of transition to an anime version. I wasn’t all too familiar with the game so I couldn’t say, but it was a fun experience to watch a love develop in the way Clannad did. Love Hina was ultimately a better experience in my opinion since it’s more fun to watch a love develop and at the same time laugh at a lot of slapstick humor while everything else was happening. True Tears gets the scenario and setting from Clannad while the feel of the love is more towards Love Hina. There is no slapstick comedy in this show, but that doesn’t hinder me from watching it. In fact, I should say this is one of the best looking anime I’ve seen so far, with a presentation style similar to that of Vandread (remember the CG mecha models). This is probably my need-to-watch anime of the current times. I could definitely see myself watching very late at night with this show.

Despite all these animated shows I’m watching, I haven’t forgotten the manga side of the deal. Born from this side of the street are some works more notable than that of their anime versions, I should say. I’m pretty proud of myself for chancing upon this pretty incredible find, the likes of which would entice people who only read the basics of an anime such as Chaos Head (FYI: I was almost trapped by Chaos Head when I was scouting for new anime. I’ve read it had something to do with murder and psychology, a clean looking way to start a plot. What turned out from a nice start was a bad mix of elements in the ending, according to some user reviews from MyAnimeList.com). The thing I’m referring to is a manga called Alive – The Final Evolution. In honesty, I might actually have picked up a wrong deal with this manga, but then again, I’ve seen this one rise to the top 50 list of OneManga.com so it’s probably better than Chaos Head. Alive – The Final Evolution starts very epically with a lot of suicide deaths here and there all over the world. It also has some frames where the manga is trying to show some psychic disturbance where the screen flashes into an “inverted color” version for a second. I’m not sure if you get what I said, but it’s better shown in an anime than a manga. Speaking of that, this one actually has an anime in the making which is amazing for me, because I’ve never had the chance to wait for an anime release before. If all’s well, I’ll probably see this one coming by the end of the year. Check it out if you haven’t.

And finally we’ve come to the conclusion of the post. After 1500 words already, it’ll be fit to add some video to the post. More specifically, I’ll be adding videos with anime music openings/endings which I’ve been addicted to recently. These are the stuff that have been ringing in my head for a long time now, even if I barely understand what they’re saying (LOL). This is a full-blown anime blog post after all.

Hayate no Gotoku! Opening – “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Kotoko