If you’ve read any of my latest posts, you may have noticed that I really don’t like writing summaries. I give them a lot of grief. Way too much. So I thought I’d take a moment to enlighten everyone as to why I have a serious grudge against summaries (of anime).
The Summary of Why Summaries Are Terrible (To Write)
You have to waste time writing what anime did with sound and visualizations. Honestly, what is worse than spending seven minutes writing a longer than expected paragraph of something you know your audience has probably already seen? Not much else is worse than that.
Take a look at how my favorite anime blogs write their summaries: THAT and Slugs. In each case, there are a good number of paragraphs committed to each episode. I write about the same amount but with less information. They’re professional bloggers, you know, I’m not. That said, I take a different approach to my posts than THAT and Slugs, they’re doing episodic recaps and analysis and I’m simply just making jokes.
Essentially, if I was making fancy podcasts like TWiT does, I would too make much more of an effort to describe the episode’s events in detail. It’s a massive time sink. One I’m not dealing with.
Some may do their summaries differently than I do, but I will continue to live on with my summary hate scheme.
Ai Nanasaki. She’s mysterious to me. She looks cold and broken. Her eyes in the OP aren’t dead, but they aren’t full of energy. They’re full of mystery. Or at least, that’s how I’m seeing Ai so far. The first scene though does something strange with Ai’s character that has been subtly built up so far (the mystery character), it displays her in snow as a bright and cute girl.
Bonus Summary: Junichi meets Ai one day in the park when he wants to use the bathroom. The he meets her the next day while in the lunch line unable to choose his dish. Ai’s about to take a practice swim when she hears the alleged black cat nyaaing outside. She finds Junichi snooping around the bottom of the steps – she accuses him of planning of being perverted again like at the park. She proceeds to tease him by asking if he wants to see under her skirt. She lifts it up revealing nothing more than her swimsuit – although Junichi nearly has a heart attack. The next day, Ai laughs at Junichi when she sees Miya’s red pen on his forehead. Since she’s short handed at the moment, she brings him to the grocery store to carry her household goods. She gives him some tickets and they win 500 yen. They spend it on some pancakes. They talk about some stuff and then the episode concludes with Ai smiling on the beach.
I’m sure Miya is silky smooth. Absolutely sure. Now, on with the show.
Essentially, I’m cutting out a bunch of relatively boring stuff. The first arc brought us the fetish late, and the second was almost instant. The third toned it down by delivering the fetish through third party fish. In the first half of the first episode of Ai’s arc, we find the initial hints of a fetish: swimsuits under school uniforms.
Oh But - I am looking!
Junichi thinks it’s bad to look – that’s Junichi4 for you. Ai is really direct with perversion though. Haruka and Kaoru took their innuedno to new heights in the end game. Ai’s starting early.
If Hibiki saw her doing this - it would be the end...
Ai comments that it’s too bad it was just a swimsuit. And then she goes on to say, while Junichi is trying to hide his shame in thinking it was too bad that she won’t allow any groping. That’s almost admitting it’s okay to look! Right.
Haruka of course, being close to Hibiki, shows up. I don’t really like Harkua anymore. Maybe I’ve been away too long?
What was that walked by? An american? No! It was Haruka!
The beach scene was nice. Here’s what we learned: Ai is in the swim club, enter a tournament soon, does after school community work, does all the house work for her working parents and is probably decent in school. Did I mention she was in the same class as Miya, again?
Cute.
Finally
Ai is mysterious. Her eyes are alluring but all scary at the same time. I don’t know what spin Junichi will be putting in on this arc, where the first was roleplaying, the second was being there and the there was oh-sensi-you’re-the-best.
Slender, perfect for a swimmer.
The ED of this arc is excellent too. It’s very fitting. It showcases her swimming club obsession first and shows off her mysterious grin, her eyes darkened by her hair and a shocked scene and and odd space scene. Her mystery is timeless?
I look forward to more. (I’ve said she’s a mystery too many times now.)
It’s getting incredibly close to the beginning of the fall season. I haven’t been keeping up with the end of the current series conclusions but I will watch it all in one go soon.
I have been watching the remake of Full Metal Alchemist, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I remember commenting to myself last year that I hated the animation. It turns out, I don’t even notice it now, whatever the problem was. The story is much better now to say the least; fleshing out so many details and answering unanswered questions. I have yet to finish, but with less than fifteen episodes to go, I’ll probably get it done before Friday.
This fall season, I intend to make a return covering two lovely series.
The first being a carryover, Amagami SS. As one of the few anime series remaining from the summer season and as one of my favorites, I’ll happily cover it. There’s plenty of commentary to go through, after all. I am certainly looking forward to the remaining arcs, especially the class president’s, Tsukasa Ayatsuji.
The second series I will cover is Index 2. Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (which bizarrely doesn’t have an entry on Wikipedia) was favorite series from last year. I remember watching Index 1 but it wasn’t as complete as Railgun was. Actually, I like Misaka much more than I actually like Index. Index is annoying, Misaka isn’t.
I also have some surprises planned for this season here on the blog. They’re not ready yet, but look for a post concerning each of those surprises soon.
While I haven’t been blogging at all these past weeks since school started, I have been keeping up though always a few days late. Anyway, I saw Sae as a penguin tonight. I was shocked by the ending they chose for this arc’s conclusion. You died from an overdose of moé too, actually.
Yeah, because this'll make more money than Avatar!
No Summaries
No summaries while not blogging anime – Random Curiosity has a lovely summary though. THAT has one now too, but it’s in lyrical poetic form.
Blue Penguin + Black Kitty = Mega Win
There is no coverage of the actual events since I’m not blogging honestly again until the fall season starts. No worries there. But I am covering the cutest thing ever. Here’s penguin girl!
Sae As A Penguin - Really, nothing cuter.
Sae as a penguin is impossibly cute. But then, we add the to fun!
Unlike Sae's hair in her custum, Miya's hair matches her's
We were given a bonus. Since there is no Miya arc and we needed a final glimpse of her before this arc ends, they gave us Kuro Neko Miya! Together, Sae and Miya clearly fill Junichi’s new fetish – cute animal costumes with moe girls inside. One might say that fish feet kissing scene was fetishy, but it’s not – it’s fishy.
Win.
Finally
That concludes my short post on the cutest thing ever.
It was fun / Time was too short / We ended with a blue penguin / Which was never alluded to
It may come as a surprise, but as much as I love watching anime, blogging about it is actually hard. That’s not to say writing isn’t fun and isn’t rewarding, but the time it’s taken for me to consistently cover the four or so shows I was covering the past few weeks was a bit too much for me. I guess I realized now that covering four shows at once with summaries and commentaries is too much. School’s starting for me again in less than two weeks and along with that comes daily homework, thus reducing anime viewing hours considerably. Once I resume work later in the fall, well, needless to say, I’ll loose more time. I’m getting busy already.
In light of these problems, this anime blog will be placed in Hiatus. Thus, I probably won’t be posting anything here for a while because I have no time. The blog may return in a few weeks at best and a few months at worst.
Have a good one.
Regretfully, Committed.
Updates
A week of school has passed already. It was weak, to say the least. Anyway, I foresee that the workload will be decent and livable. Thus, I probably will resume blogging again for the fall season. Until then, committed.
I’m late, I know. Amagami SS this week was wacky. The tone of this episode was set immediately to a different beat. The narrator first changed how to the episode worked. He introduced Junichi, making it feel like a completely different anime. Then, to take things even further, Junichi was subjected to an onslaught of ridicule and Junichi kindly asked the Narrator to stop, and of course, the Narrator completed the long tradition of breaking of the fourth wall in comedy.
'Yeah, but you said you touch her! You touch her! That's way more perverted...'
A Quick Summary
Actually, you know what? I’m lazy. You saw the episode right? If you didn’t the pictures below will summarize it for you. If you really want a summary, try reading Slugs or THAT.
A Long Time Ago… Somewhere far, far away…
She wants a turn with you too, Miya
Junichi, once told that her sister fondles her lovely young friend, imagines a very steamy situation in an after school classroom. You know, I must be missing something. How does Miya know Sae? If Sae moved into this school for the fall semester, and that’s where we basically start the arc (ending on Winter/Christmas), how many days have already passed? I doubt she had been to the Tachibana household at that point, but Miya makes it seem like she knows her better than she should. Maybe all that touching has communicated more than we expected.
But you had your hair in a ponytail / And it looked so good on you, it was criminal.
Right before Miya starts to act out having ponytails, Junichi was also doing it. There is no way any student in school would be caught dead doing that. No way.
You couldn't go one block over? And, what happened to the driver?
Sae is a scaredy cat. That is to say, she is so timid that she can’t deal with a puppy. It’s kind of sad too, because she was just standing there, alone, behind a pole. And of course our hero Junichi rescues her. One of the interest things about this anime is how we see the relationships building by coincidence and one off incidents. The purse incident and of course this setup the entire arc. If Junichi hadn’t bumped into Haruka at the beginning, this probably wouldn’t have happened in the way it has.
Whenever I bring a girl into my room, I always tell them it's 'training'!
Junichi x1 never got Haruka in his room. Junichi x2 managed to get Kaoru into his room in the fourth episode. And the incredible Junichi x3 got cute little Sae into his room on the first episode. It’s absolutely amazing. Although I think it has something to do with the fact he didn’t have to creep around Miya.
Further more, insisting on touching someone’s tummy for training is fun. Her face is a mix between shock and displeasure. And his face was ftw! So in anycase, score for Junichi x3! On the other hand, what will the kinky element be this time?
Sae looks at Miya: 'You have seen this before, right, Miya-chan?'
Isn’t the picture saying enough alone? Why was Junichi giving her a cup of hot coffee to begin with? Why even put something on the platter that could break. In fact, after the cup fell, in subsequent pans around the room, I didn’t see the cup. He probably rolled on it and addition to getting scaled with hot coffee, he has glass splinters. Someone failed, and it wasn’t Sae. And then – who would take their pants off with a girl they just met in their room? Really now? Maybe walking to the bathroom? Changing out in the hallway? Something? Anything. Please.
'This meat bun tastes so good! Nii-nii, what -----?'
Essentially, anyone could’ve walked in and made the same mistake. Miya ends up saying this too, of course, but Miya wanted to see it.
Finally
At the end of long day of training, I the three of the playing their piggyback game was fun.It was funny, but it was serious too. It showed how Sae had already loosened up. At the beginning of the episode, she wouldn’t really even speak much. Now, she’s in engaging in close physical contact. Progress.
The ED for this arc contained a chibi Sae which was incredibly cute. I like Sae overall, and I like how we get to see her develop. The only thing I have an issue with is her voice: it doesn’t fit her. Her voice actor is Hiromi Konno, the same person who did Akria Kogami who I hated in Lucky Star. No one. It’s cute, but not that cute.
Time will only tell how this arc develops, but so far, so good.
The first moments of this episode expanded the scope of this series. It portrayed the president and one of his military cabinet members discussing preemptive nuclear attacks on countries with nukes. That surely goes beyond the scope of high school but it was a good reminder, finally, in all of the fan service, that zombies have seriously desecrated the world.
Because Zombies set fire to the American capital!
I wonder though: is the United States capital better known that, say, the capital of Japan?
A Quick Summary
The episode, as mentioned above, starts with the United States president on Air Force One. After that scene ends, the teacher is driving the Hum-V across the river. Once on the other side, all the girls get out of the jeep to change cloths – and even feel a bit embarrassed. First, Takashi got a new gun, and then there were none of Them that anyone could see. Takagi’s house was near by so they planned to go there but they eventually ran across a wire gate in the road. Slamming the breaks propelled the stupid fools whom seated on top of the swiftly moving Hum-V, off the Hum-V and into a horde of zombies. Saeko, Hirano and Takashi fight off the zombies as best as they can, and they even try to lure them away by making noise away from the jeep, but to no avail it fails. Since Rei forgot how to stand up, it was lucky that Takagi’s mother came to the rescue with a bunch of high pressure burst fire hoses, saving everyone. That is, except Takashi and Saeko since they were already up a ledge at the time. The story is repeating itself.
The Fan Service this week was eaten by Zombies!
It might just be me, but after the overdose on fan service last week, there wasn’t much this week. I was so happy! Fan Service kills the mood of this show by far more than anything. Moving along.
Way too happy for this to take place in a zombie infested world.
Even if Hirano is an otaku, I don’t think he’d be enjoying this situation as much as he does. It was fun to start out the episode with a classic: row row row your boat. They were doing it of course because Alice is in second grade and knows English. It was my first time hearing it in Japanese. Same rhythm, different words.
It's the ED image of Angel Beats!
Marikawa said that she brought her friend’s supply of cloths. But when the girls walked out from behind the jeep, they looked totally the same. What are you talking about? How were Takashi and Hirano impressed?
Zombie, don't you dare come any closer...
When Rei was thrown on the ground, she was totally shocked when she saw Takashi jumping down beside her with a gun to save her. Why didn’t she get up? Was she wounded? I couldn’t tell. She wasn’t crying out in pain, bleeding or zombified. Something’s fishy.
So was her mother waiting for her? Would she have helped out if Takai wasn't with the group?
If I was writing a story, I don’t know if I’d conveniently have one of my main character’s mothers bail them out of the zombie apocalypse. Unless. Unless I’d set it up so that she was eaten very soon after that fateful reunion .
Finally
It’s interesting how they can spend twenty minutes shooting zombies instead of having someone suggest going over the fence with the girl on the group. It just doesn’t seem logical. And then, although it was hard to make out, did Saeko and Takashi need to really take a long way around to meet up with everyone else? I doubt it – there was plenty of space on the side of the street.
In any case, I’m glad we get to meet some new people who won’t be main cast members for long.
