Note to Self

My record for finishing anime is really poor, given my habit of dropping and putting series on hold. Seirei no Moribito was one of those on-hold series, but I fully intended to loop back to it because of the compelling plot set-up and an even more compelling female main – probably one of the strongest female anime characters I’ve ever seen, actually, for all the right reasons. Since I finally finished Aria the Natural recently and felt like watching something completely different, I started up Seirei no Moribito again and was really glad I did, because it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable anime viewing experiences I had in recent years.

Continue reading

Seirei no Moribito

I wandered onto The Chibi Project site in one of my internet browsing sessions and gotta say it’s pretty awesome xD I get a similar joyous (yet rather morbid) feeling as when I watch that crazy “Will It Blend?” guy on youtube.

This experiment I particularly liked: Shinji Ikari vs Trolley Car

(Courtesy of chibiproject.com)

…as you may have guessed I wasn’t a tremendous fan of NGE LOL xP

Neon Genesis Evangelion

I first tried watching Samurai Champloo in college and I remember not liking it very much then. At that time I thought it had too much blood and violence, which just goes to show how squeamish I used to be xD; Randomly, what got me over my squeamishness was this strangely grotesque dream involving several Harry Potter characters. Not going to go into too much details there…

Anyways, my Champloo watching attempt #1 involved me skipping from episode 1 or 2 straight to the last episode because again, I thought this series was just going to end up being very repetitive (and again, too violent for my general tastes back then). I started on my Champloo attempt #2 recently and of course, completely reversed my opinion. I’m in the middle of indulging in massive adoration of this series right now. Just goes to show that there usually are very good reasons why popular shows are popular.

Continue reading

Samurai Champloo

As much as I enjoy Aria, I will admit upfront that it’s not always my cup of tea. I have to be in a certain mood in order to watch it, and sadly that generally (or invariably) means that I’m horribly stressed. With the upcoming presidential election, work has just been kicking my butt. Sadly the stress levels will likely stay high for a while, since it’s going to be absolutely insane for the next few months to come.

Continue reading

Aria the Natural

It’s amazing how quickly my recent burning adoration for Macross Frontier turned to utter hatred in the space of one episode… or at least, utter hatred of some of the characters lol.

Continue reading

Macross Frontier

I loved Eureka 7, and I especially like the episode titles. Maybe because so many of them came from song titles, even though I know very few of the songs. I had a crazy idea at one point to try to do a wall for every episode title. That’s 50 episodes and I’ve only done one so far, so I kinda doubt it’ll ever happen. Still, I’ve kept the list on hand just in case I’ll ever need them someday ;D

Continue reading

Eureka 7

I just finished watching episode 6 of Macross Frontier, after looping some of Macross Frontier’s songs. One of the reason why I’m enjoying M.F. is because I adore Yoko Kanno, and I think anything she touches is made of gold and win. I can’t say I’m as big of a fan of Macross Frontier’s soundtrack as some of her other OSTs though, partially because the story calls for a lot of pop and there’s only so many ways to make pop sound innovative/awesome.

This is not to say I hate the songs… I’m looping “What ’bout my star” right now, especially the beginning; the other songs will probably really grow on me in time too. The background orchestral tracks though hasn’t blown me away as much as usual. Also, one of the tracks used in episode 6 really reminded me of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. It was another one of those moments (like the V for Vendetta-like scene in Code Geass) that became rather distracting, because I couldn’t stop thinking “zomg, Pirates, seriously!”

Continue reading

Macross Frontier

After reaching the second Excalibur-filler episode of Soul Eater, I decided to take a break from Soul Eater for a while (that damn holy sword really manages to be insanely annoying!) and started on Code Geass R2. And it immediately sucked me in (again). I freaking love watching two antagonists with strong world beliefs go at each other – the pleasure I get from watching Lelouche and Suzaku is very similar to the feeling I get with Light from Death Note. As bad as Light is, you can’t fault him for not going all out on what he believes in. And in my book determination and all-out action are what elevates characters to serious badass-ness.

Continue reading

Code Geass

I did a bit of internal screaming when Vampire Knight ended at episode 13. I’m not sure if the anime ended as strongly as it started, but I was still hooked enough to hunt down the manga and marathon it until about 4AM on a workday. I couldn’t believe they broke the anime up into two seasons Dx I guess it’s mainly because the manga hadn’t finished yet. The manga definitely grew on me a lot more than when I first flipped through vol. 1 at Borders; I also really enjoyed the big twist-reveal about Yuuki and am dying to find out about what happens next.

So with Vampire Knight temporarily done I was at a bit of a loss about what to watch/read next. Not to say that I don’t have a full watch/readlist right now, but I wanted to pick up something that can really hold my attention like Vampire Knight did. So I picked up Nodame Cantabile manga from where I dropped off, and it’s STILL AWESOME. Most people who know me knows that I freaking love this series to death, having watched anime, manga, and live action – I just can’t get enough of this series, it’s definitely an absolute favorite. I’ve forgotten some of the finer details of the story since I took a pretty long hiatus from the manga, but the plot is still going strong with quite a few threads creeping in with the appearance of Chiaki’s father. I’ve had so many laugh-out-loud moments reading the manga… usually whenever characters go into blank-eyed angsty/moody mode… or when Chiaki (fondly) imagines Nodame in weirdo forest mode… seriously FTW stuff.

Continue reading

Nodame Cantabile, Vampire Knight