Upcoming Trip

Little Kuu, I'm coming for you.

I'll be going back to Japan very shortly!  I plan to make a trip to Akiba with some friends.  I'm specifically looking for Kud Wafter, a game which I've been unable to locate (outside of YAJ) using my normal means.  So, wish me luck.  Hopefully I won't go bonkers like I did last time and spend a bunch of money.

Also, I may hit up a maid cafe in Nakano that I'm fairly famous at, hahah.  They also have a pretty large Mandarake there that I want to go through.  I doubt they'll have anything I'm looking for, though, since they put all of their stock online.

Thinking I'll top the night off by getting Yoshinoya's.  If any of you that read this want me to pick you up anything, please post it and I'll do what I can to get it for you. 

EDIT: Think I'll pick up Cross Channel also.

Accel World

Just finished Accel World.

I give it an 8/10.  It's 2046, and technology has reached a point where physical terminals are no longer required to access computers.  The internet is ingrained into our lives, to the point where it has become even closer to a virtual world than it is today.  Arita Haruyuki is our protagonist, an overweight, self-loathing, insecure individual going through the darkest time of any outcast's life: high school.  Being constantly bullied, Haru's only escape is online gaming, particularly an online squash game, which he is exceedingly good at.

Enter Kuroyukihime, the cold, beautiful vice president of the student council and most popular girl in school.  She approaches Haru and invites him to play a secret online game called Brain Burst.  Brain Burst has a huge cult following, but there's a catch: losing the game causes the user to forget everything about Brain Burst.

I felt this anime was outstanding.  The story was very interesting and brings forward a few questions about virtual reality.  While using Brain Burst, thought processes are sped up to an insane rate, and it's possible to spend months or even years in the game when mere hours have passed in the real world.  At that point, which is reality?  It has kind of an Inception feel to it, which I thought was really cool.

You heard me, Niko.

At its heart, Accel World is a fighting anime, and each episode is action packed.  You'll see Haru get beat up a lot, you'll see Haru cry like a bitch, but in the end you'll be rooting for him.  Kuroyukihime is truly waifu-material, but she is a good example of someone placing their online persona ahead of their real-world one (though Snow Black is awesome).  The secondary characters are great, especially Niko.  Of course, there's Chiyu, the annoying childhood friend, which is an anime cliche that I loathe.

The animation in Accel World is great.  In a show like this it's important to have good action sequences, and Accel World pulls it off very well.  The game avatars look like something out of a Kamen Rider-type live action superhero show, which I thought was odd at first, but it was easy to get used to.

Can't say no to her.

The OPs and EDs are really good.  I especially liked "Unite" by Sachika Misawa.  "→unfinished→" by KOTOKO is good too (another KOTOKO reference in my blog, this is getting out of hand).

I would recommend Accel World to anyone who likes action anime.  If you liked Accel World, you'd probably like C, which has a similar battle system and story.

On a final note, I preordered Snow Black immediately.  I'm trying to cut back, dammit!  Thanks Kotobukiya!

Amagami SS+

Just finished Amagami SS+.

I give it a 6/10.  This is the second season of Amagami SS, which is based on a PS2 visual novel of the same name.  This is a traditional high school dating game which follows the protagonist, Tachibana Junichi, as he lives his junior year of high school surrounded by beautiful girls.  Two years ago, Junichi was dumped and has developed a fragile little heart.  Being that his childhood friend has been in love with him since they were kids, I had no sympathy for him.

This second season is more or less a "where are they now" thing, since all of the arcs were resolved in the first season.  There's only two episodes dedicated to each girl, and, much like the prior season, I didn't feel two episodes was enough to get anything interesting going.  The story is generic and not very engaging, and any veterans of this genre will probably find it stale.  There's absolutely nothing crazy going on, so don't expect any interesting plot twists.  The girls are already "captured" at this point (thank you, Keima).  This was a major turnoff for me, as your typical "go to the bon festival," "Junichi helps X get into the student council," and "Junichi becomes a borderline camera deviant," really wasn't enough to get my attention.  I will say that I was glad Rihoko got a proper ending, since the poor girl was friend-zoned in her own arc the first time around.

AIC did a good job on the animation.  Like the first season, you won't see anyone with crazy hair or eye colors in this anime, nor will you see any girls with impossibly huge breasts.  The characters are at least believable in that way.

Lonely otaku will stay just for these.

The OP, "Check My Soul," and ED "Kokuhaku," both by Asuza, are pretty good by themselves.  However, in the first season the respective arc's girl sang their ED songs, which they decided to skip on this time around.  I was kind of dissapointed in that.  Our only consolation is a small snippet during the ED relating to the current arc's heroine.  See pic.

The voice acting is decent, but again nothing to write home about. 

The characters are more or less all stereotypes.  You have the childhood friend, school idol, class rep, sister, quiet girl, "one of the guys" girl, and a swimmer who I have trouble putting into any particular stereotype.  Junichi is Shirou-level dense, and I find it hard to believe anyone would fall in love with him unless they're an idiot, which isn't true in most cases for these girls.  I guess being simple-minded is an attractive quality.

I'd recomend Amagami SS+ to anyone whose seen the first season, and Amagami SS to anyone who is relatively new to anime and likes romance anime.  The nice thing about Amagami SS is that there's an arc for each girl, and no one "wins" as you'd usually see in anime like this (because every girl has an ending).  Each girl having their own arc seriously detracts to the amount of content you can have over a 24 episode run, though, and it's even worse with SS+ because it's only 13 episodes.  If you like Amagami SS you'd probably like Clannad.

Shakugan no Shana III (Final)

Just finished Shakugan no Shana III.

The queen is back.

I give it a 7/10.  I finally got around to watching the third, and final, season of Shakugan no Shana, and while I don't think it was outstanding, I felt the conclusion for this long-running anime was pretty decent.  I say long-running because, even though it's only 3 seasons, the first season aired in 2005.

Yuji and Shana, this time around, are surprisingly pitted against one another.  Within the first few episodes, we find that Yuji has accepted the God of Creation into himself and joined the Tomogara leadership Bal Masque in a huge war against the Flame Haze.  Think of this God as the opposite to Shana's Alastor (the God of Destruction).  Almost every episode of the anime is dedicated to depicting the war.  The anime is action packed and at least a dozen new characters are added on each side, to compliment the ones we've already accrued over the past two seasons.  As the anime progresses, it's harder and harder to identify the bad guy, and toward the end I was personally cheering the Tomogara on.  The story is decent, but has "THE HEART" somewhere in there, which proves itself the cheesiest cliche this side of "running with toast in mouth."  Also, only the Japanese can be so hell-bent on pride that they are unable to come to a compromise with someone they love.  If you could sum up the plotline to this entire anime with one word, it'd be pride.  Bottom line is, say what you will about the show, but that kiss at the end made it totally worth it.  It's something that every Shana fan has been waiting for for the past seven years, and they really knocked that scene out of the park.

Shana never looked so good.

As usual, the show was animated by JC Staff, which is one of my least favorite studios.  This time around I think they did a really good job.  There's so much action in Final that you don't notice the shortcuts that JC is infamous for taking, and close up shots are admittedly pretty nice.  Special effect work was pretty damn good too.  Also of note is the way they've aged the characters.  Shana is noticably older than she was in the first season.  One of the things I approved of was the decision to leave fanservice largely out of the show.  Aside from one scene in the first episode, I can't remember any point during this show where there was blatant fanservice.  For such a serious ending, I'm glad they made this decision.

The OST is faithful to the other two seasons, which is nice.  There was a time when KOTOKO was the queen of anime songs (lol).  You couldn't watch a one-off OVA without hearing KOTOKO's electronic voice in the opening, and it really did work back then.  I can appreciate being faithful to the beginning (2005 mind you), and I liked the songs by KOTOKO and Kawada Mami in this anime.  I dare you to watch the anime in its entirety and not mutter a few words from "Light my Fire" as you watch it.  "Koubou" by Kawada Mami is also amazing, though you only get to hear it once during the show

The voice acting of Final should get some special notice.  Everyone really did a great job voicing their characters.  Kugimiya Rie brought Shana back for the last time (got a little choked up there.. haha), and it's a little nostalgic.  Granted, there's been a million cookie-cutter Rie tsunderes since Shana (Nagi, Taiga, Louise, etc), but Shana was the first, and I guess she still holds a special place in my heart.

I'd recommend Shakugan no Shana III Final to anyone who has seen the other two seasons.  If you haven't seen Shakugan no Shana, I'd recommend it if you like action anime with some romance.  Shana is anime's queen tsundere, so if you'd like to see the birth of a phenomenon, check it out. 

Also, the commercial cuts are still funny.