Have you noticed that a lot of entries tagged with “personal” seem to have something about Christianity in them? I think this holds true of a lot of my own entries even though I’ve been secular since I was about 7. I suppose this is not actually unusual it just struck me.

For no reason I thought that I would share some of my feelings on the anime currently airing in japan right now. I haven’t seen every series that is airing right now, and notably I don’t watch shows that strike me as just being fanservice aimed at lonely young men (umisho), sports series (including the likes of wangan midnight which is about driving/street racing), or shows outright aimed at young children (happy happy clover). If you take out those kinds of shows it eliminates more than half the anime on tv right now. There are also some series which I just have decided not to watch or ended out not watching for no particular reason. An example of the former is Lucky Star which I’m sure would be amusing but I have better things to do than watch another hard otaku anime (mostly because I am one myself), an example of the latter is Seirei no Moribito 精霊の守り人 which I think looks like it might be good (it’s always nice to see a strong female lead in an anime) but I just missed the boat on it somehow.

The show I enjoy the most is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei さよなら絶望先生. It reminds me quite a bit of Pani Poni Dash, especially the “otatext” (otaku text, I’m coining this term though I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else has used it) on the blackboards in classroom scenes. I was pretty surprised that a couple of those referenced Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 天元突破グレンラガン. But in any case I happened to recognize the art style from that show and as I thought the author of the original manga version is Kumeta Kouji 久米田康治 who did another nonsense series called Katteni Kaizou かってに改蔵 before this work. To me it’s interesting that Kaizou was in Sunday but Zetsubou is in Magazine. Truly the japanese manga industry is mired.

So following on the heels of that the show I like the most is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai ひぐらしのなく頃に解 which is the solution to last years Higurashi series which was possibly my favorite series of 2006. Conversely solution is what the “kai” 解 in the title means, as opposed to the kai 改 often appended to the names of mecha which means “revision” and if that isn’t the damndest confusing thing… Personally I had assumed it was the latter kai until I saw it. I will say that I actually prefer the old school animation style that the original series had but I know a lot of people criticized it. On the other hand in comparison trying to do a more modern style with the existing designs didn’t turn out that great. I’m reminded of Initial D (the last time I watched a racing anime) which has got just terrible character art that never grows on you in its manga version. In the first anime incarnation of that they went with a style that was very faithful to the original work only to try and do a more standardized artificial style in the later incarnations. Second stage wasn’t so great and 3rd stage was whatever although by 4th stage it seemed like they’d found about the right balance ascetics wise but the designs were iffy. 

I think that Gurren Lagann deserves a nod for having the best animation in spite of the most flawed production. It’s not the raw looks but rather the animation’s intensity that stands out. I also enjoy and like it a fair amount but not as much as the former two series and in the end I can not in fair conscience say that it’s good. This is in large part due to the frequent recaps although I believe it’s now in the last stages so there shouldn’t be too much more of that. I wouldn’t rule it out though, Gainax has always been bad about that in the first place but the production of this series seems to have been especially blighted.

I will grudgingly say that Darker than BLACK ‐黒の契約者‐ (that’s a mixed english japanese title) might be the best anime on tv right now that I’ve seen but it’s almost by default. Higurashi isn’t very far along and is a sequel which I feel like would be really confusing and harder to appreciate if you hadn’t seen the original. That’s opposed to how it’s just fairly confusing in the first place. Other than that I feel that it’s not my imagination that in general offerings have grown weaker the past few years as far as quality goes and original works that are any good (which this is) are especially rare. But before going on with that line of thought, Darker Than Black reminds me a lot of a more modern (as opposed to futuristic) and supernatural Cowboy Bebop which is not a bad thing but like that series it has a feeling of being more superficially cool than substantially full. I do enjoy the two episode storyline format though, it makes the show easy to get into (which could be considered pandering to a general audience if you’re feeling stingy). As a side note I’ll say that I feel like the production company BONES puts out solid work in general (including the Cowboy Bebop movie…) and that if nothing else you can count on quality visuals and high production values.

On the other hand that’s really about it for animation that I like right now. I’m considerably worried about the future of Code Geass after getting pissed that they delayed the last 2 episodes of what they belatedly stated is supposedly the first season. Why they couldn’t have just run a 52 episode series or whatever is beyond me. I wonder if the work didn’t just end out more popular than they expected so they decided to continue it?

The upcoming show I’m looking forward to the least is the new gundam series which will start in Japan’s fall. I will of course watch it anyway if I get the chance though.

In my opinion the most disappointing show and probably one of the worst on tv right now (you can at least write off children’s shows) is Reideen. It’s an incomprehensible and seemingly pointless remake of the 1970s mecha classic Brave Raideen. I didn’t see the first alternate version of raideen from the 90s but the the first one was “brave” the second was “the superior” and this third one fittingly doesn’t have anything tacked on to the title since it’s just weak. To me the main problem is the really crappy 3d computer animation which goes really slowly. I seem to recall that there was a 3 minute sequence in one episode of Raideen (the show is officially reideen but the mech is still raideen) simply flying through the sky. But the poor production has also lead to stupid plot holes by reusing animation sequences. Notably the main character activating raideen and using it’s features. Initially they tried to explain these but then they just boffed it and do things counter to the way they state things are supposed to happen. Things like that could be forgiven if anything happened in the show or if there was some cohesive plot. But it really seems like the plot is just that these aliens are after raideen because they want it’s power but they can only go about it in a certain way. I suppose that there’s a chance that the series could develop a plot in the last 8 or whatever episodes but I doubt it, the show will just drag me along to its end. As to why I’m watching it if it’s so bad, that’s what it means to  be a mecha otaku. I never saw the original (which I doubt is very good but at least it has a story) but I’m familiar with the series from the super robot wars games. Raideen is fairly powerful in those games and now that I think about it I wonder if he’s the only super robot that’s not an original (or Ideon) to have a map attack in alpha 3, it’s one of the more powerful ones at that.

Ugh this is depressing me… maybe I’ll watch Lucky Star after all, what the hell I could use a little cheer since I can’t do what I want to right now anyway. Viva Otaku! Rot in hell 我が人生. In case you were curious I’m not going to talk about manga or games now since those are more invested subjects. I will say that as a former hardcore gamer I don’t like the direction that the video game industry is headed however I think it’s inevitable. Something that I only realized lately was how wasteful Nintendo is and has been. Did you know that their Wii controller just uses normal batteries that get used up pretty damn quickly? How many millions of units did it sell? On the other hand maybe it does take a normal person months to play games for 60 hours as opposed to how I think I spent more time than that playing Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 for a few days a couple weeks ago. I actually think that wastefulness is a serious issue in japan but I’ve never looked into it. I’m pretty sure that they still burn their garbage there like they do in a lot of oriental countries and I don’t think that they do a lot of recycling. That might be a serious topic to look into and write about another day.