It’s been quite a while indeed since my last post here, hasn’t it? To be honest, I had more or less given up on this whole blogging thing and considered closing up shop, leaving only the archives for the occasional Google visitor to peruse.

Fortunately, I decided not to throw in the towel just yet, and instead have cooked up several new and (hopefully) interesting posts that will be going up in the near future. Before I go any farther, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a big shout out to my friend ghostlightning, whose continual pestering and seemingly boundless creative energy was in large part what motivated me to start writing for Epic Win again. In between yelling in all caps about the outcome of the latest UFC event, or waxing eloquent about Rafael Nadal, he managed to infect me with his enthusiasm for blogging, and anime in general.

Also, for all of you who e-mailed asking about the blog, thank you so much for taking the time to contact me, and I apologize I wasn’t able to respond to all of you. I was genuinely surprised at the number of people who apparently enjoyed reading the content on this site and were willing to write up an e-mail asking us to come back.

To be fair, things have been pretty hectic this year with quite a few major transitions for me, and a few of them are worth mentioning.

First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate my erstwhile co-blogger Guff for receiving his TEFL credentials and having been accepted  into the JET program as a teacher. In a few weeks he’ll be shipping out to Tokyo for orientation, before moving on to his new residence in Hokkaido, where he’ll be teaching at a number of different schools in the region. Speaking as someone who previously taught English in Japan, I’m incredibly excited for him, as this is will no doubt be a very enriching and challenging once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Second, although I previously posted about taking the JLPT level 2 exam this last December, I never got around to posting about the follow up results. I’m happy to say I passed with flying colors, doing especially well on the grammar and listening comprehension sections, so now all that remains is the final examination level – the daunting JLPT1. I’m under no illusions that I’ll be able to pass the level 1 test this coming December, but I am continuing to study when time allows, and hopefully can make a good attempt at it next year.

Finally, I had the chance to take another sightseeing trip in Japan this spring during the height of the sakura bloom, and I was able to visit some really interesting off-the-beaten-path locales that I’d love to post about when time allows. Most notably, I spent 3 days on Yakushima, a nearly uninhabited island several hours off the southern coast of Japan, which boasts some of the world’s most ancient and unspoiled cedar forests. As a photographer it was a dream come true, and once I finish sifting through the roughly 80 gigabytes of photos I took during my time there, I’ll definitely have one or more posts up recounting my experiences on the island.

(click for slightly larger version)

Well, if you’re still here reading this, thank you very much for hanging around and still visiting this site even after so long. It really means a lot to me, and I hope I can return the favor by bringing you guys some good new content in the coming weeks. Thanks again to the many readers who wrote me and to ghostlightning for the encouragement and much needed kick in the pants.

…and yes, I realize the second Matrix film was a disappointment. Hopefully referencing it in the title of this post won’t jinx me.

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And this is my theme music as I roll out to face the enemy. Here’s hoping this year is an epic win!

I’m taking the level 2 again after just barely missing the cutoff last year. This time I’m actually feeling pretty confident about it, as last year my familiarity with a lot of the kanji was pretty suspect and I still came close. After a full year of reading manga almost exclusively in Japanese, I think I’m much better prepared, although there’s still always those horrible trick questions with really ambiguous contexts to confuse you.

Once this is over Epic Win will officially be off hiatus, assuming the test and/or Los Angeles traffic doesn’t kill me, so check back later this week for some new postage. I still have a lot of catching up to do for this season of anime, but I have a couple interesting posts cooked up in the meantime.

Ugh, I’d almost forgotten what a pain in the butt it is to cram for exams. Well, good luck my fellow examinees! And, uh…posthumous good luck to those overseas who already took it, I guess.

/salute

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Disclaimer: These rankings are purely a reflection of our own opinions and tastes, which are admittedly rather different from your average anime fan. Just because we don’t like a particular show doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. Your mileage may vary, etc etc. However, if you do have a different opinion about a show, by all means post a comment so that people reading have more than one opinion to go by.

Summer often gets a bad rap as the “filler” season in between the generally much more packed spring and fall anime seasons. This season, however, summer boasts an excellent crop of new shows for fans of all different genres. Although I’m ranking these shows numerically according to my favorites, almost all of them are enjoyable in at least some respects.

Almost all.

17. Element Hunters

Send it to hell, Marge, send it to hell.

No seriously. Usually I try to give a series at least 3 or 4 episodes before making a judgment call, but this show had me pulling my hair only minutes into the first episode. I still watched a few episodes so that I can say I’m not making a premature judgment, but man that was torturous.

The plot is something along the lines of:

Earth is in crisis because our precious elements are disappearing! As it turns out, they are being stolen by an evil alternate dimension known as “Nega Earth”! Yes, that’s right. They are coming to earth and stealing our elements. Like, one at a time. An element.

And! And the only way to stop them is to transport teenagers in spandex outfits to Nega Earth to fight and bring back our elements! On account of grown ups can’t go to Nega Earth. No seriously. It’s because of science! Yeah…

So they go to Nega Earth, and there’s lot of emo bullshit and teen angst, and then they fight a monster using strategies that sound like some kind bad science project. And the element is captured in their “Pokedex”. Gotta catch ‘em all.

And everybody lives happily emo after.

16. Fight Ippatsu Juuden-chan

Another typical fanservice fest, and one with an incredibly sketch plot to boot.

Well, maybe I shouldn’t call it “typical”. I understand this series really pushed the envelope in terms of what you can get away with and still be on broadcast television, what with masochism and urination in every episode. Or so I hear anyway. I couldn’t deal with the insipid plot long enough to even find out if that claim is true.

15. Aoi Hana

Yuri. That’s the only term that this show can really be described with, and also its only “redeeming” quality.

If you’re into that you might enjoy it, but beyond that gimmick the plot doesn’t really offer anything interesting or substantive. The characters are incredibly one-dimensional, and not in a good “one-dimensional funny trope character” way. And did I mention that the one dimension is yuri?

Sigh…

14. Kanamemo

This series is so ridiculous and creepy on so many levels, I can’t even begin to describe it. The constant loli yuri fetishism was emphasized to a degree that I found downright disturbing, and the plot alternated between cringe-inducing awful and yawn-inducing boring.

The only bright ray of sunshine were the vocal performances of Kugimiya Rie (Shana, Sanzenin Nagi, Louise), who is practically a requirement these days in any series with a loli tsundere, and Mizuhara Kaoru (Misao from Lucky Star), who really needs to get more roles, because her voice is incredibly awesome.

13. Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Sigh. I really wanted to like this show. I tried very hard.

The show has most annoying cast of characters I’ve seen since Code Geass R2, which is saying a lot. The dialogue comes across as extremely forced, the characters are all wholly uninteresting, and most of the plot and pacing feels as though the scriptwriters just grabbed random text from the game and stitched it together slapdash.

12. Umi Monogatari

I actually like this show quite a bit, surprisingly. It’s fairly typical magical girl fare with a side of fanservice, but it’s delivered with solid animation, an excellent soundtrack, and a rather tongue-in-cheek approach that makes it a bit more memorable than most similar shows.

11. Sora no Manimani

A predictably slow tale of highschool life and budding romance, Sora no Manimani won’t knock anybody’s socks off. It does, however, manage to provide a good amount of random humor, some cool astronomy lessons, and the occasional heartwarming moment.

10. NEEDLESS

This show is trying to be Gurren Lagann so hard it hurts. Not only does their logo look nearly identical, the main characters bear a very suspicious resemblance to Kamina and Simon, albeit in appearance only.

The sad part, as much as I hate NEEDLESS for having a name in all caps and being essentially one huge rip-off, it’s actually a halfway decent series. The production values are above average and the show features a colorful cast of super-powered blowhard badasses beating the crap out of each other. There was supposedly some kind of larger plot involved, but I wasn’t particularly interested in it, and judging from the way the show progresses I kind of get the feeling that the production team wasn’t either.

9. Zan Sayounara Zetsubou Sensei

Season one of Sayounara Zetsubou Sensei was legendary. Season two was lesser, but still hilarious. Season three seems to be lowering the bar even further. While still vintage Shinbou comedy, this season is really missing a lot of the magic that made this show great in the past.

SHAFT seem to have their best animation squad committed to Bakemonogatari right now, so the visual caliber of the series has taken a noticeable dive. Beyond that, however, the humor just doesn’t seem quite as fresh as it as was in previous seasons. For better or for worse, the format is exactly the same as it always has been, but the jokes are less original and the scenarios less creative.

That’s not to say it’s bad; by no means. I still watch SZS and laugh at it. Compared to some of the other awesome shows in this season’s line-up, however, I have a hard time justifying giving it a higher spot.

8. GA – Geijutsuka Art Design Class

GA is this season’s obligatory “slice-of-life, day to day adventures of a group of high school girls” anime. I’m pretty sure that Japan is legally required to make sure that at least one show like this is airing at all times.

As a typically slow-paced slice of life show, it features the usual cast of unusual moe characters doing silly things in silly ways. Given the subject matter of the series, the natural inclination is to compare it to Hidamari Sketch, and in that respect I’d say it measures up extremely well. Not only are the production values much better than Hidamari, GA has more consistent humor. It also puts much more of an emphasis on (gasp) the actual art and related artistic endeavors of the cast, so it’s both entertaining and educational.

I’ve enjoyed Geijutsuka Art Design Class so much, in fact, that I went out to the local Kinokuniya and bought up the tankouban collections of the original 4-koma series the anime is based on.

7. Taishou Yakyuu Musume

This is the real sleeper hit of this season.

Set in 1925, during the transitional Taishou period in Japanese history, this show follows the misadventures of a group of school girls as they try to form their own baseball team and compete on even terms with the boys. The story starts off extremely slowly, but quickly develops into an endearing tale of failure, success, perseverance, and personal growth that really epitomizes the Japanese spirit of teamwork.

I’m a huge fan of jidaigeki, or Japanese period dramas, and Taishou Yakyuu Musume has quickly become one of my favorites in this sort of genre because of its slice-of-life approach to storytelling, as well as its interesting progressive perspective on the changing role of women in society during this pivotal period in Japanese history.

For more info, check out 2DT’s great write-up about the series.

6. Princess Lover

I was actually expecting Princess Lover to be terrible, mainly because of the name, as well as the number of overgenerously proportioned females featured in the promo art. I’ve ended up been pleasantly surprised by this series, fortunately.

Make no mistake, this show is completely ridiculous, but that just serves to make it incredibly hilarious. The story of a young man who is taken in by his incredibly rich grandfather when his parents pass away, Princess Lover covers everything from school hijinks at Yuppie Academy to random international intrigue. It doesn’t shy away from the fanservice, but it also manages to do it in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner that doesn’t turn me off from the series.

I also have to give them mad props for including an awesome Kaiji parody, as well as the many other lulzy moments of the hot springs episode. The director is just having way too much fun making this series.

Also the grandfather is voiced by Wakamoto Norio (Emperor Britannia, Vicious, Narrator from Hayate no Gotoku), so how can you not enjoy this show, really?

5. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya S2

I don’t know which is more surprising to me – that I’m actually ranking a Haruhi season as low as number 5, or that I’m still loyal enough to have it this high on the list considering everything that has happened this season.

Just for reference, by the way, the reason I’m including it in the rankings this season is because last season was almost entirely recap material, and thus I skipped it in my Spring Rankings post.

In any case, I still enjoy the Haruhi franchise, and while the hype has died down considerably and the newer episodes aren’t anything special, the series still manages to deliver consistent, predictable fun. As long as Haruhi dominates all life, Mikuru cowers, and Kyon facepalms and provides his characteristic dry narration, I’ll continue to be well entertained by this show for a long time to come.

For more Haruhiism, nobody does Haruhi posts better than Jason Miao.

4. Bakemonogatari

If you’re a regular reader you know that we’ve already said quite a bit about Bakemonogatari, some of it negative and some positive. Just like Sayounara Zetsubou Sensei, this series is classic SHAFT x SHINBO, with all of the quirks and visual oddity that that combination fosters. As a result, it probably will not appeal to everyone.

That said, if you can get past the odd visuals, even weirder music, and even more bizarre characters, this show is a real gem. The visual style, however, while creative, just serves to set the stage. Dialogue is really the soul of this show.

The incredibly clever banter between Araragi and the various supporting characters is witty and sarcastic, at times innuendo laden, and always off the wall. It really makes it fun to watch, and paired with all the kooky audiovisual trappings serves as a textbook case of surreal, wacky humor.

Add in the unique wit and charm of Bakemonogatari’s leading lady, Senjougahara Hitagi, and it’s no wonder that this “Senjougahara Fascination” craze has started to dominate the otaku mindshare.

To supplement your Bakemonogatari crazy, I recommend checking out Kurogane’s posts on the subject, as well as our summary.

3. CANAAN

After a ton of initial hype surrounding this Type-Moon produced series, it seems like many people felt somewhat let down by CANAAN. I think most of the disappointment stems largely from the fact that the anime tries to cultivate a very “serious business” vibe in the beginning, but then quickly shows its true colors as a somewhat goofy, if beautifully animated, action series.

That said, I think CANAAN is brilliant at what it does. If you’re looking for a show with a moody, gritty realism to it, CANAAN is probably not your show. If you just want to see awesome gunfights and have no interest in character exposition, CANAAN is probably not your show. If all you’re interested in is yuri-goggle fodder… well ok, CANAAN might still be your show.

Ultimately, however, CANAAN’s appeal doesn’t rest on it’s action scenes or any potential yuri-bait that may or may not exist. It’s about the characters and the way they somehow come together to create a hilarious, quirky, and entertaining story that is greater than the sum of its parts.

For more on this series, Kabitzin has the best episode summaries. We’ve got several CANAAN related posts here at Epic Win, as well.

2. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

I simply have no words to adequately describe this series. It’s gone beyond all my expectations, pulled relentlessly at my heartstrings, and spun a fascinating tale about courage, cowardice, hope, and despair.

Most disaster films really try to play up the spectacle of a disaster for entertainment value. Many of them try to play up some kind of romance subplot. And unsurprisingly, they’re mostly pretty terrible.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 strays away from the traditional disaster flick style of presentation for something much more down to earth (so to speak). Focused on the story of two children caught in the quake far from home, and the woman who helps guide them back, this series is about a surprisingly simple and personal story that portrays the very human reactions that we all exhibit when the world we know breaks apart. It’s a story about hope through the most despairing of circumstances, and persevering through difficulty with the promise of a brighter future.

I really just can’t properly convey how awesome this show is. So instead let me refer you to someone much more qualified to do that, who has written extensively about this series and its many ups and downs.

1. Spice & Wolf II

Spice & Wolf is a rare kind of story. It’s one in which there are no grand large scale plots, no clear beginnings or endings. It can’t even properly be called a romance story. And yet, it is exactly that lack of many normal or stereotypical elements that makes Spice & Wolf a very unique and enjoyable tale.

I’ve been a fan of the novels and the manga that inspired this anime for a long time. The first season of the anime, although lacking in a few areas, was brilliant and captured most of what I liked about the series. This second is now following in its footsteps, except now under the direction of a new studio and with a larger budget it’s become better in every aspect.

Horo and Lawrence’s hilarious yet heartwarming hot-and-cold relationship is endlessly entertaining, and the rich dialogue the show features reveals an incredible depth and uniqueness in its multi-faceted protagonists that is rarely matched.

For more on Spice & Wolf, check out DarkMirage’s review, or Martin’s excellent write-up.

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First, I should clarify that I have nothing against Pete Zaitcev; I like him and the stuff he writes. I just can never resist the opportunity to heckle him about his backwater “no comments” policy, especially when his excuse for not allowing them seems to be “well it’s just too much work”.

Of course it’s just my personal preference and I can’t reasonably force that on him, but I find it incredibly frustrating when I can’t just leave a comment on someone’s post to provide feedback. It also eliminates the interesting group conversation that helps enrich a good post and fosters online community.

This issue has already been beat to death, and I very much doubt that Zaitcev will change his ways, so I suppose I’ll have to content myself instead with gnashing my teeth in frustration and hassling him at every opportunity.

OK, so about Google PageRank. In my previous post I mentioned that one reason I removed my normal blogroll was because it’s damaging to the site’s ranking.

Pete responded to my comment with the following:

“UPDATE: Blogrolls do not “damage” PageRank. For one thing it’s impossible to “hemorrage” to begin with. We know that Google applies certain modifiers to the calculated PageRank postfactum, and some of them discourage link farms. However, there are also ad-hoc modifiers for dealing with blogs.”

I don’t know on what basis he is so confident of this opinion that it is “impossible”. Google is naturally very secretive about how their algorithms for searching, sort, and ranking actually work, so of course we can’t know for certain the exact mechanisms that are work here.

There are a couple key things we know, however, that I believe support my conclusions about the PageRank system:

1. PageRank across the internet is a zero sum game at its core. For one site’s PageRank to rise, it necessarily comes at the expense of another.

2. Although no one knows for certain the inner workings of Google’s indexing and ranking algorithms, we do at least know for a fact that the system worked this way in the past. Obviously they have made significant changes over the years, but I don’t see how this could be fundamentally different given #1. They also have received several related patents that seem to indicate this is still a part of how the system works today.

The bottom line: is it harmful to your site to have a traditional blogroll? Truthfully, it’s probably not that big of a deal, especially given the small scale of the traffic on most anime blogs. This is especially the case if Pete’s claim that Google modifies its weighting specifically for blogs is true.

However, to say that it has no detrimental effect to your rank at all is, I believe, pretty obviously false. By the very zero sum nature of the system, outgoing links will always have the effect of giving away some of your “link juice”. It may be negligible, especially considering the way links are weighted based on the relevance of the site that’s being linked to, and the relative ranks between the sites.

But the fact remains that it always by nature has at least some minor negative effect. A few links here and there is nothing, but when you’ve got 50 or more outbound links on every single page of your entire website, the effect can add up. Even more so when many of the sites have a much lower rank than your own, or (if you’re lazy and don’t update your blogroll) are simply dead links.

There’s also evidence that if the majority of the links pointing to your site from others are “site-wide” links, as is the case with traditional blogrolls, it can actually be detrimental to your rank. This would seem to indicate that new bloggers who go around trying to get listed on the blogroll of every site they can find are actually hurting their own cause.

Again, there isn’t a way to prove all this Q.E.D., unless you happen to be in the personal confidence of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but there’s a significant amount of evidence supporting these ideas. Honestly, I was a bit surprised at Pete’s reaction, since in my experience in the industry this understanding of PageRank and linking in SEO is very common.

If I’m completely misinformed, and this is “bogus” as Pete claims, I certainly welcome him or other informed readers to correct me. I don’t believe that to be the case, of course.

In any case, either way I’m much happier with my new blogroll, as I feel it better helps highlight my favorite related blogs while also giving readers more information about the sites I recommend.

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For a long time now I’ve been dissatisfied with my  current blogroll, and indeed I’ve never been particularly keen on the concept for traditional blogrolls to begin with. The standard “list of links on the sidebar” doesn’t give much useful information, hardly ever generates any clicks, and also damages your Google pagerank.

Thus, I’m very pleased to present a much more detailed blogroll listing that I feel properly gives credit to the sites that I enjoy the most and which recommend to you, my readers, as being Worth Your Time. This page will be added onto my top menu shortly, so you can always refer back to it if you’re bored and want a good anime blog recommendation.

If these guys recommend it, it’s probably worth checking out.

Mono no aware 物の哀
http://mononoaware.concretebadger.net/

Martin’s blog  is the first of my “trinity”.

“Mono no aware” is a Japanese concept that refers to the pathos and transient beauty of life, and Martin’s writing captures that idea perfectly. Although sometimes a bit heavy intellectually, his posts do a great job of helping me remember why I love anime and Japanese cinema, as he highlights thematic concepts and shares his unique insights in a very personable and down to earth manner.

The fact that he loves Mushishi and a good Guinness Stout doesn’t hurt, either. Also check out the archives of his now-retired blog The End of the World.

The Animanachronism
http://animanachronism.wordpress.com/

Although he doesn’t write as often these days, Daniel’s posts are always incredibly insightful. He does an excellent job of taking high-falutin’ social or academic literary concepts, breaking them down in ways I can understand, and then applying them to anime series both old and new.

Although it may sound like an odd way to approach what are otherwise fairly serious business concepts, his unique perspective and presentation helps to both make the ideas he’s discussing palatable to the average reader, and to give a greater appreciation of the anime which he uses to frame his discussion.

We Remember Love
http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/

The Not-So-Holy-Ghostlightning rounds out my blogger trinity with electric and incisive writing about the latest new anime series. I hesitate to call his posts “episode reviews”, because they are so much more than that. He’s a very “honest” writer who shoots from the hip and shares his thoughts and reactions without pulling any punches.

I honestly have no idea how he manages to keep such a frenetic blogging schedule while also demonstrating such excellent insight and creative analysis. Add in a dash of comedic brilliance, and the fact that he regularly links to excellent posts on other blogs, and you have a 1-stop shop for tapping into the anime fandom collective.

This is one site where you can expect both quantity and quality.

Sea Slugs! Anime Blog
http://www.seaslugteam.com/

This memorably named site is one of first anime blogs I discovered, and to this day it is without question the best “episode summary” blog you’ll find. A must read.

Featuring lots of witty repartee and tongue-in-cheek coverage of the latest anime series, as well as a star-studded cast of slaves co-bloggers, SSAB is where the party is at. Instead of simply recapping scene-for-scene an episode you just watched, Kabitzin inserts his offbeat humor into his summaries, producing a hilarious retelling of the story. Coupled with a strong core audience of good commenters, Sea Slugs is a great place to find some lulz and enjoy a more easygoing kind of anime appreciation.

Kabitzin runs a pretty tight ship, so you can expect lots of regular updates for newly airing anime from all across the spectrum.

Kurogane’s Anime Blog
http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/

Kurogane’s posts are the best “reaction immediately after watching an episode” you’ll find. Short, sweet, and to the point, Kurogane highlights key hilarious or significant moments along with lots of screenshots and the kind of reaction commentary that makes you feel like you were right there watching the episode with him.

This is another blog that I’ve been reading for years and which has always consistently delivered. With posts being generally lightweight and brief, Kurogane’s Anime Blog makes for easy reading and is worth a feedreader subscribe for even the most time pressured reader.

blog好き
http://blogsuki.com/

I can’t keep up with the constant name changing, so I’ll just refer to it as “The Blog Formerly Known As Anime on My Mind”. Run by the reclusive Jason Miao, this was the very first anime blog I read, one that I’ve been following for over 6 years now.

Claiming that “there’s very few things in pop culture, life, or anime that cannot be explained with sports,” Jason’s writing is peppered with clever sports analogies. Coupled with his frequent techie jokes, giant images of moe characters, and penchant for making lists and rankings out of everything, his blogging style is right up my alley.

The commenters on the site tend to leave something to be desired, but the posts themselves are generally hilarious and well written, and can be fun to go back and read even years later.

2-D Teleidoscope
http://2dteleidoscope.wordpress.com/

A relative newcomer to the anime blogging scene, 2DT has quickly made a name for himself with a consistent posting schedule that has him exploring a variety of anime genres and the underlying concepts and themes they explore.

This site is a great way to deepen your appreciation of series both old and new, and to gain greater insight into Japanese culture and mythology.

The Scrumptious Anime Blog
http://scrumptious.animeblogger.net/

The tastiest anime blog ever. Seriously, even the favicon looks delicious.

Run by a self-professed crazy fangirl, this Scrumptious Anime Chef is always cooking up great posts about a wide variety of anime and manga related topics. Not only is usagijen’s writing eloquent and intelligent, she blogs wearing her heart on her sleeve, which gives her posts a very personal tone that makes them stand out from the crowd.

She’s also a fellow JLPT veteran, so every December we can commiserate together when the annual day of punishment arrives.

hontou ni
http://hontouni.com/zan/

This unholy blogger gattai of tanuki and zaku has produced a sort of raccoon cyborg blogging machine that alternates between episodic anime summaries and goth-loli-siscon fetishism.

In addition to the regular schedule of witty anime commentary, there are plenty of artbook reviews and bishoujo related posts.

hashihime 橋姫
http://hashihime.blogspot.com/

Although he doesn’t post as often as most blogs, hashi makes up for post count with the sheer size of his entries. Featuring a strong focus on seiyuu and the Japanese anime scene, hashihime fills a unique niche in the blogging ecosystem.

Without a doubt, this is one of the best sites to check out if you are interested in learning more about the Japanese vocal talent that goes into producing anime.

Bateszi Anime Blog
http://bateszi.animeuknews.net/

Another awesome U.K. blogger! Paul is another writer who does a great job of highlighting great anime and the great stories that emerge from them. His fairly conversational tone belies the profundity of his words, and he excels at reviewing a series in a concise and entertaining way, so check out his review category for a good selection of recommendations.

That’s Not Kanon
http://tnk.hidoshi.com/

Back from Hiatusland, hopefully for a long time this time, Hidoshi is always full of off-the-wall unexpected ideas that germinate into fun posts with unique perspectives.

Hige vs. Otaku
http://higevsotaku.com/

Hige is just pure genius. I always end up wanting to watch whatever he’s writing about, because he makes everything sound fun and entertaining. This is another writer who you shouldn’t take off your subcription list just because he doesn’t post often – when he does post it’s sheer brilliance.

Ramblings of DarkMirage
http://www.darkmirage.com/

Rambling it may be, but DarkMirage never fails to educate and entertain, whether he’s bashing horrible fansubbers or liveblogging his latest Comiket misadventures. His posts often tend toward the rant end of the spectrum, but that only makes them more fun to read, as his writing is crisp and intelligent. He also speaks fluent Japanese and has a good understanding of the culture, so his linguistic and cultural insights are always worth reading.

I also hear he’s secretly a superhero IRL.

Tenka Seiha 天下制覇
http://blog.seiha.org/

The “World Domination” blog is another episode summary blog, but like Sea Slugs it’s less about recap and more about wit, cynicism, and snarky commentary. Aroduc’s posts feature lots of screenshots, so if you’re pressing for time and don’t really feel like watching an episode, you can just look at the posts here and call it a day.

Ani-Nouto アニ・ノート
http://ani-nouto.animeblogger.net/

Author is a troll and a lurker who claims he doesn’t allow comments because he can’t “justify the expense of maintaining [them]“.

That said, he has a very successful sort of meta-blogging site in which he highlights various interesting posts and discussions from around the anime blogosphere. His commentary is usually quite interesting, as are the articles he links, even if the blatant lack of an easy feedback mechanism is endlessly frustrating.

Cruel Angel Theses
http://omaemo.dasaku.net/

Another troll, except this one writes way too much, rather than too little. That said, Owen tends to generally exhibit good insight, and while he hasn’t posted recently, his archives make for fun rainy day reading, especially his series of Darker than Black posts.

Riuva
http://www.riuva.com/

Although tj_han is a troll, too, he’s a much higher class of criminal. Indeed, there are plenty of times when I begin to think that his incredibly dry, sarcastic wit should be illegal. A self-described “avatar of uninhibited Asian nerd desire”, he consistently writes the harsh, invective posts that everyone else was thinking but didn’t want to say.

[ halcyon realms ]
http://halcyonrealms.com/

An industry insider, yonghow frequently shares great photos and stories from Japan. In addition to fun tales from the anime industry, this site features some great art from a wide range of Japanese artists.

H.C.Staff
http://www.houseofsixten.com/hcstaff/

Because cute makes right. Sixten is an artist in every sense of the term, and his site showcases many of his artistic works, whether in drawing, composing, or just writing.

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“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” – Seneca the Younger

It’s no mistake that Yuuki’s name means “courage” (勇気). Throughout the story of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Yuuki more than anyone else has been the one who held on to hope, who had courage in the bleakest of circumstances.

And now, even in death, Yuuki leaves behind his namesake.

For reasons that largely baffle me, many people seem to have been really bothered by the developments of the last few episodes. I have to wonder if perhaps some of it is an issue of being “lost in translation”. I watch this show raw in Japanese, as I do with most series that don’t employ ridiculous specialized vocabulary, and I felt the dialogue that was used (or not used, in some cases) made it pretty clear from the beginning that Yuuki had passed away and was no longer actually there.

They didn’t come out and say it overtly, but many of the nuances of the Japanese seemed to make it fairly obvious. I had actually written up a longer post specifically on this issue, but it was eaten by my word processor and I didn’t have the heart to re-write the whole thing from scratch. Sigh.

In any case, I don’t see the direction the story has taken as some kind of “trick” or “gimmick”. The past two episodes were never about the so-called “Mirai delusion”, or some kind of story contrivance to keep the viewer in suspense.

It was a passing of the baton.

The story of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 opens by emphasizing Mirai’s self-loathing and lack of desire. Mirai hates herself, her own 未来 “mirai”, or future. To her there is nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, so in the present she is rudderless, just drifting through life without the will to swim against the current.

She longs for the wholeness of the round cake that represents the unity her own family has lost, but she does nothing to try and repair the fragmented relationships. Instead, she simply wishes that the world would break.

Yuuki, on the other hand, fondly remembers better times, when the family was whole. To him the memories of Odaiba Bridge and Tokyo Tower serve as a link to those happier days. His desire to go back there with everyone echoes his hopes that the family can also return to the way it was.

Even when the very symbols of his hope – Odaiba Bridge and Tokyo Tower – crumble to the ground, he remains courageous, constantly striving to lift others up, to try and rebuild those “burned bridges”.

Courage has never been simply about having no fear or feeling no pain. It is accepting those difficulties and finding ways to overcome them. It is about holding on to hope even when everything you rely on falls away.

Yuuki brings back Mirai’s phone when she throws it away. He encourages her when she loses hope. He guides her to find Mari’s family. Whenever Mari is unable to support them, he leads the way and guides Mirai onward himself.

And through these experiences, gradually his courage passes on to Mirai. He still leads in many ways, but Mirai begins to follow less reluctantly. She stops panicking and starts acting more level headed during emergencies. She is able to take the initiative and save others.

And yet when Yuuki passes away, Mirai still isn’t quite ready to stand on her own. So Yuuki remains.

The questions of how it happens, or whether he is a ghost or a figment of her imagination are irrelevant. The point is, he leaves Mirai his “yuuki”, his courage to go on even when hope has disappeared, when she is unable to continue.

Ghostlightning calls it a “lie”, but I don’t think this is quite a fair way to view this story arc. Yuuki remains because Mirai needs him; she needs courage to keep going, but hasn’t yet found that strength within herself. Yuuki stays until Mirai is able to continue on her own.

In episode 10, Yuuki asks Mirai, “If I died, what would you do?”

“If you died, papa and mama would probably cry themselves to death. I would too.”

Mirai isn’t ready yet to accept the truth. She doesn’t quite have the courage to face that reality. And so Yuuki remains.

Every time Yuuki drifts away, Mirai begins to cry. And every time, Yuuki returns to comfort her. He doesn’t push the issue by forcibly trying to confront the “elephant in the room”. He simply remains and waits until Mirai is ready.

The scene in the classroom is the defining moment for Mirai. When she learns Yuuki’s true desire for going to Odaiba she begins to understand the kind of courage he possessed – a limitless hope for the future. When she sees the “mirai” kanji he drew, she comments that she can tell he “really put everything he had into drawing it”.

Yuuki’s notebook reflects his attitude. It’s a picture of  the as yet unfinished Tokyo Sky Tree, the 333 meter tall communications tower that will soon replace the aging Tokyo Tower.

Even though Tokyo Tower may have fallen, Tokyo will soon rise again, even stronger than before, with the Sky Tree serving as a symbol of hope to the people – a reminder that even though the world may broken, as long as courage does not fail it can be rebuilt.

I think it’s through this understanding of Yuuki’s true character and courage that Mirai  finally begins to find the strength to continue on her own.

Mirai demonstrated some courage of her own by acting calm during the aftershock and protecting Itsuki – a far cry from her cowering reactions earlier in the show. Perhaps at least a little of Yuuki’s “yuuki”, or courage, has finally passed on to her.

All that remains is to see what Mirai does with this courage, what kind of future she decides to make for herself. Throughout the last couple episodes, there have been many times where Mirai has turned around and said, “Yuuki was right here a moment ago.”

Hopefully, in the final episode, Mirai will instead be able to point to herself and say, “Yuuki (courage) is right here.”

R.I.P. Onozawa Yuuki

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Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and although this is most assuredly due to my laziness, it’s not entirely accurate to say that I’ve been doing nothing but loafing about drinking shochu and watching anime during the punishing summer months here in Japan. Not entirely accurate.

Anyway, what I’m planning to do is share some of my more interesting adventures during my time here. I’ll have leave the serious discussion on the finer points of Japan’s rich cultural heritage to 0rion; my tales will serve as more of a series of facepalm inducing incidents.

So I met Yotsuba the other day, as in IRL.

I was sitting in the cafe area at the local DOMY supermarket, minding my own business, enjoying some of their scrumptious yet very reasonably priced salmon nigirizushi. In the background I could hear the sound of a kid running about shouting something about “okashi” (candy).

As the sounds drew closer, it became apparent that the voice belonged to a small child approximately five years of age. As she entered into the cafe area, which I need to stress is just a couple of tables and chairs seated next to some vending machines within the store, her eyes met with a horrible sight. Namely, my face.

Now, children in Japan usually have one of two reactions when seeing me – either utter despair, or profound curiosity which then quickly descends into glowering disapproval.

They are either perplexed and besotten with sadness as to how God could allow for such an opprobrious creature to exist, or they are disappointed that some responsible adult has not already taken care of removing this affront from their presence. Either way the reaction is usually not positive.

Let me just say that I can absolutely corroborate this fact. I have, on at least a half dozen occasions, seen Japanese children so stunned at Guff’s mere visage that they literally stop in their tracks.

Some even faceplant on the ground, they are so shocked at the sight of this strange and alien being. Yes, small Japanese children tend to be surprised by any sudden encounter with a foreigner, but Guff is a special case deserving of an even more dramatic reaction.

Oh, and if I speak Japanese to them… well, that just completely eviscerates their fragile universe. All in all, it’s a bad day for everyone concerned. This situation, however, was different.

As the young child looked up at me she drew a deep breath. I was preparing for a horrified scream, so I quickly turned around, but instead I was met with a rather cheerful shout of, “DO YOU REALLY LIKE TEA?!”

“What…? Tea… what is she talking about?” I thought to myself.

Then I remembered that I had purchased some oolong tea earlier. Like a simpleton I pointed to it and said with much trepidation, “Uhh, yes, I like tea very much.”

“WOW, THAT’S AMAZING!” the child replied in earnest.

“HEY, do you know how to use this machine?” she asked, pointing to the adjacent drink dispenser. Although I had previously used the machine in question, I thought that I had better play the stupid foreigner, a role that I unintentionally perform exceedingly well, and replied with, “No, not at all, can you please show me?”

“OF COURSE!” she chirped, “IT’S REALLY EASY!”

“OK, first… first you get a cup! Then you put it here and push this button… and then it starts as water but then it TURNS INTO TEA!”

I watched with great attentiveness as this miracle took place before my eyes; indeed the machine did produce tea.

“Actually it’s not very cold but… IT’S REALLY GOOD!” she said after taking a rather large gulp.

I need to stress that the child did not say “oishii” or even “umai”.

Instead, she yelled out “UM~EE!”, a somewhat masculine and very slangy way to refer to something as tasty. After she had finished her explanation she wished me a hearty “JA NEE~!” and departed the store. I could hear her mother mildly scolding her as they exited, “You shouldn’t bother people like that…”

“I WAS HELPING HIM!” she shouted off in the distance.

Truer words have never been spoken.

-Guff out

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This article is probably the best and most accurate explanation of Touhou I have ever seen, highlighting both the fact that the games are incredibly punishing and also highly bizarre. Not that that should come as a surprise, considering they were made in Japan, the product of what the article refers to as “a 110 lb Alcoholic Game Designer”.

The author summarizes the Touhou subculture as follows:

1. All of the Characters are little girls.
2. Despite what Fact #1 may lead you to believe, the games are extremely difficult.
3. The Touhou Fanbase has achieved levels of craziness that make other Fanbases look downright lazy.

I always knew that Touhou fans were completely insane, but I didn’t grasp the sheer scale of their insanity until I saw a “Touhou Fan Music Collection” torrent somewhere. The collection of music was over 400 GBs! I think my entire music library is only like 25 GBs tops.

Well, that and also I’ve heard that the DoujinStyle forums are just a terrifying den of iniquity^{[citation needed]}.

The series revolves around a Miko (Shinto Shrine Maiden) named Reimu Hakurei… who lives in a magical world named Gensokyo. Every so often, disaster strikes, and it’s up to Reimu to save the world from little vampire girls, little ghost girls, little demon girls, little exiled moon princess girls… Generally, mythical entities that all look like LITTLE GIRLS.

Unlike most popular Japanese PC Games, Touhou isn’t an Erotic Dating Game or a Rape Simulator. In fact, instead of letting the player rape little girls, the game RAPES YOU… metaphorically speaking…

In any given Touhou game I think I make it about two or three stages max before I get absolutely shot to hell by these loli boss chicks and their Unlimited Beam Works spellcard BS. And that’s on Normal. I think on the hardest difficulty my average lifespan is somewhere in the neighborhood of approximately 8 seconds, give or take 7 seconds.

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I’m sure this is exactly how terrorists behave in real life.

Somehow I feel like this should be “the rejected Nintendo Wii commercial”. Fun for the whole family… if your family happens to consist of crazy siscon maniacs and masochist henchmen. Maybe cut to Liang Qi playing Mario Party 8, you know. At least that would explain why she seems so furious.

But man, if nothing else CANAAN is certainly generating lots of fodder for the internet meme-factories to work with. Between this and “LOVE AND PEACE”, CANAAN is a definite leader when it comes to legendary Engrish.

The random bathroom fight sequence between Canaan and Alphard was entertaining on so many levels.

Kabitzin opines that:

While Canaan may be a great shot, she needs some serious work on her close quarters combat.  I have not been put in this exact same hold, but I am 85% sure that grabbing the attacker’s ass is not the proper defense.

So there’s a 15% chance that it is the correct defense?!

Although, to be fair, if your opponent is strong enough to pin you against the wall by your throat, legs completely off the floor, using only her forearm, there probably aren’t too many good counter techniques.

And now that I think about it, although it looks awkward, technically Canaan does have an underhook from the clinch there. Maybe she was looking to drop her weight and execute a judo throw?

My favorite part of the fight scene was actually this shot right here, where we only see their stance and leg movements and have to infer the other details of the fight. This is a common technique used in Hong Kong martial arts films, so it was nice to see it used here as well.

I really enjoy this style of cinematography because it emphasizes the fact that footwork is the foundation of any stand-up fighting discipline. You can actually get a pretty good feel for what’s happening even though you only see the combatants from the knees down.

Or maybe they just like animating lots of leg fanservice. Legservice?

Ponyo by the sea he’s not

You know there’s something seriously wrong when a Japanese person looks at a fish and has that kind of reaction. Considering that Japanese people are freaking hardcore and regularly eat things that would cause most Americans to flip out, it takes something pretty bizarre to give them pause.

Of course, with that hair and eye color Maria is so not authentic Japanese anyway, so perhaps it’s a moot point.

The scene where Yun Yun leaves her boat was surprisingly poignant, I thought. She is literally leaving her old life behind, having packed all of her earthly possessions in that backpack of hers and left her home boarded up.

We haven’t really seen the significance of Yun Yun giving Maria a key to the boat yet in the story. I really do hope that plot point comes back later in the story, though, if only because that boat is incredibly awesome.

I was a bit surprised at first that Canaan would actually help Yun Yun out by showing how to shoot a gun. It makes sense, though, because of her synesthesia. She knew from the beginning that Yun Yun did not have the “intent to kill”, and thus there was no danger.

“198! 199! 200! 200 sticks of dynamite, ah ah ah!”

I love taking screenshots totally out of context.

The look on Maria’s face was priceless, too. No reaction from Canaan, though. Just part of the normal routine for her, eh? Or maybe she wasn’t concerned because she saw that Mino didn’t have the color for “rape and pillage”. Whatever color that might be.

“I see what you did there.”

Here’s one more.

“All hail Brittania!!”

LOVE AND PEACE!

I really think this is supposed to be a social commentary on how the rest of the world views American foreign policy. Lots of energetic and (mostly well meaning) bravado about how we all need to understand each other for the sake of LOVE AND PEACE, but in the end no real solutions, just lots of empty platitudes.

Gotta infect ‘em all!

OK, now this was the one big letdown for me in what has been an otherwise fun and creative series. I understand that they aren’t going for realism, but so far they’ve mostly stayed in the realm of “unrealistically awesome”.

This chibi anime terrorist avatar was so terribly out of place with what had been a fairly serious hostage crisis scene up until that point. At first I laughed awkwardly. It got old real quickly, though. Eventually I threw slices of cheese at the monitor.

I’ll stick with “get some”, thanks. Oh well.

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I mean seriously. Look at her blatantly wallhacking, shooting people right through the walls.

And her movements? Pretty obvious speedhacks going there. Possibly even a bunny hopping script.

And I don’t care what game you’re playing, anyone who spins in circles while shooting everybody within 100 yards is an aimbotter. That’s just common knowledge.

As I mentioned in my more detailed Canaan post, the concept of synesthesia as a superpower is really a legitimately interesting concept. Of course, here they’ve just made it an excuse for Canaan to do everything from rapid target acquisition to deflecting bullets to computer hacking, Tachikoma-style.

Not to say that isn’t totally awesome. I’ve never been one to let minor details like, you know, physics get in the way of a good fight scene. At the very least this series establishes early on that its objective is basically just to deliver truckloads of awesome, not gritty realism.

Why do Chinese people even bother having roads when they’re always just running on the rooftops?

And deliver it most certainly does! The whole festival setting was perfect for a badass, John Woo style rooftop running gun battle. The use of fireworks to mask gunshots or to highlight key moments in the battle was brilliant, and the overall cinematography was really adventurous  and engaging. I love it.

Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi sugoi!

Gotta love Maria too, the kind of person who would probably be extremely obnoxious in real life, but who fits right in in a fast paced action flick like this. Did I just call it a flick? It really does feel more like a film than an anime series, now that I think about it, both in pacing and plot development.

Om nom nom.

OK, now I know I said that CANAAN doesn’t sweat some of the details when it comes to realism, but this right here?

Totally 100% realistic. I have absolutely seen Japanese schoolgirls do exactly this. No, I have no idea how they do it either. Just… spoon into the parfait and “nom”, the entire top of it is gone.

I can’t even finish an entire one of those, but I regularly see Japanese girls literally half my size devour those things in a matter of seconds.

This guy needs to stop using default metering. And buy a bigger CF card.

Now on the other hand, if we’re talking about lack of realism… how the hell did Mino expect to get decent action shots at that distance while shooting handheld at 1/60th of a second shutter speed?

Also, based on the style of the viewfinder, the camera Mino is using here is part of the Canon 1D / 1Ds line-up, so at least that part is pretty accurate.

“He grabbed my buns!”

Can’t help but like a girl who just wants to give the audience a little fanservice. And she’s rockin’ handlebar braids and little moe fang? Brilliant.

Her quirky Japanese is really fun, too. She consistently uses “~su” instead of desu as a sentence ender, much like Momo from Saki (the disappearing girl). Coupled with lots of slangy informal Japanese it produces a speaking style more typically associated with the male highschool delinquent type, but it works really well for her character.

“Driving cars off of cliffs, taxis with wings, these are a few of my favorite things.”

Most awesome taxi driver or most awesome taxi driver ever?

Not only does his driving give Takumi Fujiwara a run for his money, he does it while singing along with ridiculous J-pop idols. And then he drives off the edge of an unfinished overpass. If that’s not just sheer, unadulterated win, I don’t know what is.

“In addition to giving me magical ninja powers, this purple mark unlocks the infinite ammo cheat for my Uzi.”

Two heart brother and green shirt kid were a great combo. I was actually rather sad to see them both get taken out so early in the story.

Canaan always picks the most ridiculous, unstable shooting platforms. Maybe she has a perk that gives increased accuracy when hanging from poles and ladders?

Although come to think of it, it’s rather ironic that Canaan was able to 1-shot all those hidden bad guys at the festival while spinning around a pole, but she empties her clip at this guy who is in plain sight and can’t hit him.

Maybe she was afraid of getting banned and turned off her hacks?

Tetsuoooooo!

I also really like the OP for CANAAN as well. The song is incredibly catchy, and the lyrics are quite fitting for the show as well. Coupled with the great animation sequence it’s easily one of the most engaging and memorable OPs this season.

And really that’s a good description for CANAAN as a whole. While I do feel that people are overlooking some of the deeper story elements, at the end of the day CANAAN is just a good old-fashioned adventure in theatrics.

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