Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Just watched Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo.

Length: 24 episodes

Rating: 8/10

Genre: Slice of Life, Romantic Comedy

Due to the low rent and a penchant for taking in stray cats, Sorata moves into the Sakurasou dorm near his high school.  The tenants at Sakurasou are well known throughout the school for their eccentricities and Sorata quickly begins to question his decision to move in.  Wishing for a normal school life, he vows that after he finds homes for all of his cats, he'll move back into the regular school dorms.  However, there's a new tenant on the way to Sakurasou: a girl named Shiina Mashiro, who is very beautiful and an extremely talented artist.  However, everyone at the dorm quickly realizes that Shiina is completely incapable of taking care of herself.  The concepts of being on time, clothing herself, and taking baths are totally alien to her.  Like another of his stray cats, Sorata adopts Shiina and becomes her caretaker.  Shiina's amazing artistic abilities both inspire and devour nearly everyone she comes into contact with, including her new friends at Sakurasou.

I will say it up front that I fell in love with this anime.  Despite being a slice of life romcom, Pet na Kanojo has a fair amount of depth to it.  The relationships between the helpless Shiina and everyone around her is complex.  At first everyone loves her and takes pity on her, but over time her extreme talent causes feelings of jealousy and encourages her peers to alienate her.  This anime deals heavily with such themes, and is the major focus of the relationship between Sorata and Shiina, also is a factor in the relationship between Kamiigusa and Mitaka.  Accepting your limitations, loving yourself for who you are, pursuing your dreams, and discovering your own talents, are all very important themes of this anime.

In an anime like this, generally the main character is fawned on by every girl around him.  In Pet na Kanojo, there are no less than four major relationships developing, and all developing uniquely.  This helped keep me interested, and although the main focus of the anime is with Sorata, Shiina, and Aoyama, the others got their own plotlines, and it was wrapped up fairly well in the end.

The animation in Pet na Kanojo isn't really anything special, but I really loved how the coloring was done.  Everything has a very soft color that's quite appealing.  JC Staff has never been one of my favorite production studios, but they do this genre very well (see: Azumanga Daioh, Mahoraba: Heartful Days, Nodame Cantabile). 

I would recommend Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo to anyone.  I thought the interpersonal relationships between the characters were very interesting and kept me around until the final episode.  I also liked the message the anime put out, and the characters themselves were all great.  Also, it's physically impossible to watch the first OP without clapping.

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: The Movie 2nd A's

Just watched Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: The Movie 2nd A's.

Length: 2hr 30min

Rating: 9/10

Genre: Magical Girl, Action

Being that Nanoha is one of my favorite shows, I had been anticipating this movie since the first one was released back in 2010.  Nanoha the Movie First completely blew me away with flawless animation, well-choreographed fighting, and new content.  Seven Arcs did so well turning the introductory arc into a fine movie that I couldn't wait for their crown jewel, Nanoha A's, to get a movie.  This movie was announced shortly after the release of Nanoha First, and the wait was well worth it.

The movie takes place six months after the events of the first movie.  Nanoha and Fate are now tentative mages at TSAB, the Time Space Administration Bureau.  Fate has been cleared of the charges against her and has been adopted by Admiral Lindy Harlaown.  Nanoha has remained on Earth and juggles school and her mage training.  Nanoha and Fate have not seen each other since the end of the last movie, and are planning to meet in the near future.  On the promised day, however, powerful mages appear and make short work of them both, transferring the magical power of their linker cores into a tome and escaping.  Calling themselves Wolkenritter, they are ancient Belkan mages and guardians of the Book of Darkness, a powerful lost logia which threatens the entire Earth.  It's up to Nanoha, Fate, and the rest of TSAB to stop them before the Book of Darkness refills its magic and goes berserk.

As you can see, the plot isn't really anything new, but I love how Nanoha mixes sci-fi and mahou shoujo.  Being a mage is somewhat like being able to control powerful technology, but the power generation output is based on how powerful that mage's linker core is.  Mages wield an intelligent device and also have an augmentive armor in their barrier jackets.  Also, having spaceships and dimensional transfers and stuff is just too cool.  Some have compared Nanoha to "Gundam with little girls instead of robots," and I would say it's an accurate analogy.

They did cut a little bit of content from the series, but it was definitely something I could overlook based on how good the overall movie was.  To make up for it, a wealth of little additions were made that were not in the series to enrich the story.

The animation for the A's movie is spectacular.  Following the high standards of the first movie, Seven Arcs pulls off some very pleasing combat sequences.  I especially liked the first person sequence during the Nanoha and Reinforce fight.  Seen from Nanoha's perspective, she's shooting and is suddenly smashed through a mountain.  Freaking awesome.  The overall animation is flawless.  No expense was spared.  This movie is a showcase for what modern animating methods can do.

Voice work was very good.  The entire cast returned to perform their character's voices.  In Nanoha style, Tamura Yukari and Mizuki Nana perform the vocal music for the movie.  Indeed, once Mizuki Nana starts singing during the ending fight, you'll get pretty pumped up.  I was extremely happy with it.  Like the first movie, the score was an instrumental version of the music from the series.

In conclusion, if you're a Nanoha fan or love action movies, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: The Movie 2nd A's is a must watch.  The excellent animation and choreography alone were enough to make this movie amazing.  By the way, the Japanese release has English subtitles.  Have fun!

Heartcatch Precure!

Between moving from Hawaii to Florida, getting set up with school and all the small things, I haven't had a lot of time to update my blog.  Now that I'm settled in, hopefully I will be able to keep up with it.  I have close to a dozen shows to provide reviews for, so look forward to it!  Also, a new cour started recently.  I've been watching the ongoing Ore no Imouto and Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, while also watching the new series Shingeki no Kyoujin and Namiuchigawa no Muromi-san.

Just finished Heartcatch Precure!

Length: 49 episodes

Rating: 7/10

Genre: Magical Girl

 

Being a huge Nanoha fan, I have been pretty curious of the Precure series for a while, but just hadn't gotten into it.  After watching Futari wa Precure for about a dozen episodes, I decided to give Heartcatch a shot because I had read that it's one of the best in the series.  That isn't to say that I thought Futari was bad, it's just that it's a bit older and is showing its age.  I will definitely go back and finish Futari at a later date.  Heartcatch really hooked me, and I rode it through to the end.

Tsubomi is a shy, introverted middle schooler who wants to break out of her shell but is always holding herself back.  Erika is an extremely upbeat and outgoing girl in Tsubomi's class.  The two couldn't be any more dissimilar, but after the extraterrestrial agents of the Desert Messengers attack with the intention of turning the earth into a desert, the two girls are forced to join forces as precure to stop the bad guys.  Harnessing the power of love and friendship, the two girls become Cure Blossom and Cure Marine to beat the hell out of their foes, always finishing with a massive blast that comes straight from the heart!

 

The story is mainly your typical "monster of the week" thing.  However, Tsubomi (Cure Blossom) and Erika (Cure Marine) grow a lot over the course of the show, which was quite endearing for me.  Seeing Tsubomi especially grow from such a quiet thing to a kick ass precure was nice.  Cure Moonlight's story was interesting and surprisingly deep for a so-called "show for little girls."  There were a few times, especially during the last 10 episodes or so, where I was asking myself "Is this really for kids?"  Not only does this show explore the emotional trauma of ultimate failure (not to mention the death of a best friend), but it also teaches important lessons about letting go of anger and loving and accepting yourself despite your flaws.

The animation in this show is what you might expect for a show that ran for 49 weeks.  It can get sloppy in some places.  As is common for a magical girl show, where, despite being a nicely detailed animation, every transformation scene and every Floral Power Fortissimo is recycled every episode.  Sometimes these budget-saving techniques get kind of old.  But there's some great combat animation in this show to be had.  I would say most of the budget was probably spent animating the fights, and indeed the fighting is certainly one of the big draws for the fans of Precure.  The choreography is very good, and no two fights during this show are the same.  The final battles that take place in the last ten episodes are especially intense and I loved them.

Another animation-related thing to note is the camerawork.  This show has a very unique way of moving the viewer around, and is fond of very quick extreme closeups through what I can only call a fisheye lens.  Generally, this kind of camerawork is only applicable to the fight scenes, but it's definitely unique and has a charm of its own.

The intro/outros for Heartcatch are normal J-POP songs, with the exception of the 2nd ending, which sounds very similar to gospel music.  While I don't really think that it fits here, it's definitely something I've never heard in anime.  It's just bizarre.  After every episode during the second half of the series I feel like I'm in a Baptist church or something.  The score is pretty good overall.  Though I probably won't download the OST, there were some very appropriate orchestral pieces that fit well.

I would recommend Heartcatch Precure! to anyone who likes magical girl shows.  If you like Heartcatch, definitely check out Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Cardcaptor Sakura, and to a more sinister extent, Puella Madoka Magica.  They are all three outstanding anime that happen to be magical girl shows.