Opinion Prone

This was something that has been on my to-read list for years. One of my professors assigned it as required reading last quarter, but we never ended up discussing it, so I never got around to finishing it. I was determined to finish it before the movie’s release though and thus finally sat down and marathoned through it in five hours on Tuesday. Now I can finally look forward to the movie tomorrow (not seeing it at midnight). I hear there have been a lot of mixed reviews going around, but I don’t really want to read any of them until I’ve seen it. I’m not really worried, honestly. The trailers look great, though I’m kind of on the fence about the special effects. Despite that, I don’t think I’m expecting a whole lot from it, so hopefully my purist neuroticism won’t strike too badly.

We’ll see. I will definitely be writing a review of the movie as well, so yeah. In the meantime~.

Watchmen

[View the rest of this entry...]

Finally. I finished watching Darker than BLACK (and its OAV) over the weekend, so here’s the review for the series. I’m still rather surprised with how much I ended up liking the series, but I’m not sure I explained that very well in the review. I never feel like I adequately explain anything in my reviews, haha; maybe that’s why they always end up excruciatingly long.

I’d really like to see a sequel to DtB though. If that BONES document leak last summer was right about the Fullmetal Alchemist sequel, then here’s to hoping that DtB part was true too, eh? As much as I’d love to have some answers to the five billion questions I have though, I have to wonder if having a sequel explain it all would take away from the huge mystery that is this series. I watched the last two episodes again while writing the review, but I still can’t be confident in making any kind of solid conclusion about the ending. It’s nice in a way, probably because it’s such a big change from the usual fare.

Side note: I can’t decide if I should bother reviewing the OAV. It’s really not that important to anything, but it was entertaining all the same — probably as close to DtB will ever get to crack.

I finished my review for Ouran High School Host Club. I’m still surprised at how great this series actually was, and really want to see a sequel for it. In the meantime, I think I’ll make my way through the manga. I wonder how many chapters of material the anime actually covers? When will there be enough material for a sequel? :3

The first eight episodes of Host Club are available dubbed and streaming from FUNimation’s website. The first three episodes are also available subbed. I highly recommend checking them out~.

As far as the winter season goes, the first episode of Kurokami was amazingly disappointing, and I think I might end up dropping the series after another one or two episodes if nothing improves. It’s really too bad; Bandai picked a really risky series to put so much effort in. If Kurokami does go by the wasteside, I guess I can finish Darker than BLACK or something instead.

Being Asian, the “real” New Year’s has never been as important to me as the Lunar New Year (for 2009, it’s on January 26th), but I guess Planetes is a pretty good series to have reviewed for the new year regardless. I was thoroughly impressed with the depiction of space here: it is amazing, and everyone that considers themselves any kind of sci-fi fan should definitely check it out. It’s the future, guys!

A lot of people seem to recommend Infinite Ryvius for those who like Planetes, probably because Goro Taniguchi directed both of them and both deal with space, but I’m having a hard time moving on with the former. I’m four episodes in, can’t relate to any of the characters, and don’t really feel moved towards caring about their well-being. It’s kind of frustrating. I think finishing it might depend entirely on how much I want to review it because I hate reviewing series I haven’t seen in their entirety; it always feels like I’m missing something that way.

The series I’m breezing through now though is, surprisingly, Ouran High School Host Club, lol. I’ve avoided the series thus far mostly because the premise didn’t interest me. I hear their fanbase is pretty annoying too, but I don’t really concern myself with that usually. As it is now, I’ll probably be finishing off the series tonight and hope to have a review by the time classes start again on Monday. v_vV I’m flying to New Orleans on Friday though, and carpooling the ten hours from there to Savannah on Saturday, so maybe not. We’ll see! I’m sure nobody cares but me! 8D

Finished up the season finale on Christmas Day, so here’s the review for Nodame Cantabile Paris-hen. It wasn’t quite as awesome as the first season, and I’m still a little confused as to why it’s only eleven episodes long because it could have easily been longer, but I’m excited for the third season. Why does it have to wait until Fall 2009 though? So far away. ;3;

Oh, well. I’m thinking of checking out that TV drama in the meantime, especially since two live action movies are coming soon too.

It’s kind of weird switching off between this and Planetes though, lol. I’m halfway finished with that and will get that review in by New Year’s if I’m lucky

Here is my review for Gundam Wing: Episode Zero. I meant to do it earlier when I was reviewing all the rest of my GW manga, but Episode Zero must be special since I still own it and I sold everything else. I really want to go rewatch Gundam Wing now, but all I have is some ghetto VHS tape of the final five or six episodes… and there’s no longer a working VCR in the house. I do have Endless Waltz, so I guess I could watch that, but I wanna see the series, man. Then again, maybe I should just go rewatch Gundam SEED (for the fifth or sixth time) instead since I do have access to that, and I’m supposed to be filling in the SEED wiki portions of Anime Vice while this fellow does Wing.

And now it’s time for my rant about Comcast even though I’m sure that there isn’t a single person that would sing praises for them!

[View the rest of this entry...]

Finally saw this OAV the other day, so here is the review. I’m still kind of surprised at how good it was. It’s good enough that I’m actually considering checking out the Astray spin-off stuff, which I’d avoided before mostly because the Astray girl characters were annoying as hell, but I guess they wouldn’t really be using those characters anyway (right? right?).

What I really want though is either for someone to license and release the Gundam SEED Destiny: The Edge manga series or for someone to freakin’ finish scanlating it. I usually just say that I deny Destiny’s existence and don’t treat its events as canon, but I guess I’m still desperate to find something that takes that shitty storyline and makes it (somewhat kind of maybe) tolerable. From what I’ve read of The Edge, it seems like it has that potential. Of course, part of that is natural just because The Edge’s retelling focuses entirely on Athrun’s POV instead of jumping onto Shinn’s sorry sobstory. Athrun being my favorite character from the series probably helps too. :\ Still, if the Astray side stories can get translated, then why not The Edge? (Probably because everyone finally realized that no one likes SEED in the States and doesn’t care, probably.)

Well, I finally got around to marathoning through Gundam 00, so here’s the review for season one. I’m still a little behind in the current season (I’m on episode 8), but I’ll probably be caught up by tonight. I’m pretty disappointed with the series in general right now though. The first season’s ending was terrible, and the second season so far hasn’t really made up for it. I really wish they had just cut out half the nonsense in the first season and filled it with all the relevant stuff they’re trying to fit into season two. They could have ended the series in 25 episodes, and it would have been better. I guess I should wait until the second season’s done to pass final judgment though.

But seriously, I’m getting so sick of Sunrise’s Zombie characters. I was going to write a rant about it, but it seems even writing about it pisses me off, so whatever. 8| Raaaaage.

Finished my review for 5 Centimeters per Second. This marks my 40th review on MAL, and I’m just about to edge into the top 10 of the Most Helpful list. A silly and self-important goal, I guess, but everyone likes to feel relevant now and again, right?

I’m not really happy with how I reviewed this movie though. It’s hard to convey mixed feelings when numbers are so impartial. I might just need to watch this movie again and revise the review after that, I dunno. (I overthink these things, I’m sure of it.) I’ve lost a lot of friends since everyone parted ways for college (what is a Facebook friend, really?), so maybe that’s why I had such a snarky attitude towards some parts of this film. The characters made it seem too unrealistic, which is a damn shame because the topic is so relevant. It’s ironic that in today’s super-connected society, people are as isolated as ever.

Nostalgia is a terrible thing sometimes.

I’ve not heard much about Kokia… most likely because I haven’t seen all too many series she’s done music for. She did a song for Origin: Spirits of the Past, but it must not have left a very big impression on me because I can’t remember it at all. In any case, I was looking for Christmasy music and came across this album, so I figure I’d give it a shot. I love my Christmas music, and I love my j-pop, so this has to be good, right? Here are my thoughts from an hour of just sitting and listening to music:

TRACK 01: Amazing Grace (YouTube it)
Kokia’s voice starts off eerie and soft, but it really does have a beautiful quality to it. Her notes are high and very sustained — her trademark ability, apparently — giving it an even more surreal quality. There’s a soft echo in the back, almost like a canon, but it fades out too quickly… oh, wait, there it is again after a brief silence. It still fades in and out, but it’s really interesting sounding when it’s there. Beautiful violin solo, keeps the mood nicely. It’s creepy, but it’s pretty soothing too. Good music for a quiet evening.

[View the rest of this entry...]