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Archive for June, 2010

And Negi lays down the law on Tsukuyomi.

Of course, Tsukuyomi’s skills isn’t just for show…. man, Nodoka sure is popular.

Oh god, the lightning rocket punch from Negi was both absurd and a CMoA.

But, that’s not just all she has… cheating time!

Ku Fei gets to show off her new Artifact.

And it’s been a while since we saw Secchan’s wings. Fake-suna trying to help but realizing otherwise was cute.

Sorry for being late with this post, somehow things just transpired to lead me to forgetting about doing it.

Waiting for 294 now, since there’s a huge twist in it. 293 was pretty much an action-only chapter.

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FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF—————————-

My sentiments exactly.

The real culprits are revealed. Souma and Yamada make a fine combination despite Souma’s misgivings.

Holy shit, Matsumoto speaks! After 12 episodes, she finally gets to speak!!

….. I don’t know what’s cuter here, the puppies or that extremely happiness-filled looking Kotori-chan.

Oops, Kotori-chan Katanashi’s true feelings about Inami-chan are revealed.

Hurr…. nice save there, Katanashi!

Additional points for mind-breaking Inami-chan as well as escaping from getting punched.

Ahh… Yamada’s smile is kinda infectious isn’t it.

…. and life at Wagneria goes on as usual.

The End.

And with that, Working!! ends its fine run. While it had a bit of a rough patch at the start, once they got settled in, the show is consistently the funniest one in the crop of Spring shows, managing to provide both drama and LULZ in fine order without each aspect overwhelming the other.

Only thing I felt needed improvement would be more Poplar screentime, since the focus was mostly towards Takanashi x Inami and Takanashi’s family towards the second half, but the introduction of wildcard Yamada really spiced the show up quite a bit with her antics and perfect timing. Ryou Hirohashi was in fine form last season ;_;.

Liked: Yes, very much.
Rewatch: Definitely, when presented with the chance.

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……………………….. what?!!

Uh, how did you arrive here BEFORE Otonashi did when he died first?

Oh god, this can be sooooo taken out of context. Otonashi, the Heartless.

And finally the last confession…

…. and thanksgiving….

… and disappearance.

Geez, that’s an amazingly shitty way to end the show. Maeda sure doesn’t know what pacing is even if it was a 380-pound albino gorilla wearing the Brazilian jersey emblazoned with the words “PACING” and blowing a vuvuzela to each ear. So many questions left unanswered, so many possibilities unexplored, so much key frames wasted.

Okay, enough of the pacing jokes. Seriously, this is probably the most disappointing show of the season, given the pre-airing hype over the last year or so and the “star-studded” names behind the project. Good job, Maeda. Good job, P.A. Works.

Bah, well, it’s just as well the show flopped. Of course, there will probably be quite a number not sharing my sentiments but hey, each fandom to its own taste and blind worshiping. Well, it wasn’t as if the show totally failed, there was a few positive aspects to it.

On the top of that list (which is pretty short I might add), is the music. Girls Dead Monster isn’t perfect throughout, but when a song shines, it really shines (literally for Shine Days in this case). Songs like Little Braver, Crow Song, My Song, Thousand Enemies and Ichiban no Takaramono (just came out though) are still on the top of my playlists. My Soul, Your Beats and Brave Song are also nice pieces as well and overall the musical aspect of the show is probably the most polished part of the show.

Coming behind that is episode 10, which is probably the only episode of the whole series to elicit a feeling of loss and grief for me. Truly a case of where KISS (Keep it Sweet and Simple) works perfectly and Yui’s character added on with her backstory still hits hard, especially when playing Ichiban no Takaramono. The rest of the show’s “tear-inducing” scenes just didn’t work at all for me. Yuri’s story was more rage-inducing, Naoi’s was pretty gay, Hinata brought it on to himself, Kanade’s one is well… random and Iwasawa’s story just feels purely unluckiness than tragic. The rest well, they’re all blanks and space fillers haha.

And finally, the random humor element, equally enjoyed and criticized by all, was pretty funny when it worked, as the rocket chairs showed us. T.K. was also consistently funny as heck as he is random, but wasn’t really utilized much. Kanade’s fixation towards Mapo Tofu was cute but also disjointed too, as did her random Sonic Blades as well. It was good yes, but it really ruined the poignancy of some episodes as well. Truly a double-edged sword.

I really don’t feel like adding to the criticism of the show so I won’t add that here. I would most prefer to focus on the positive aspects but hey, we have the comments section open for debate! In the end I’d like to say that Angel Beats! is entertaining but not a great show. The sad thing is? They could’ve fixed a lot of the negatives but instead they just decided to take the route of “hell, i’ll just do what I want and people will still buy my shit at the end”.

Liked: Yes, but the bad outweighted the good in the end.
Rewatch: Probably not (except episode 10).

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Hurr reset ending. I thought that would be happening.

Well, I guess it wasn’t terrible at the least, since they did had quite a bit of fun with everyone in the end, so let’s recap it a bit first…

Firstly, Akuto’s finally realizes Junko’s feelings..

Although he still doesn’t quite ‘get’ it.

Man, this part was kinda badass win.

Riri nearly stole episode 11 for me. Holy shit can we have a spin off or OVA focusing on her? I want to hear more of smexy, rubber body Ryou Hirohashi.

And this is why Riri didn’t totally stole episode 11 for me, Junko’s awesome sword-pulling declaration. The only thing that would’ve made it better would be her bitch-slapping Teruya.

Even got some gay scenes also!

Maa… in the end, Ichiban Ushiro Daimaou is a show priding style over substance and is partially successful at it. Sure the storyline was pretty much written by a bunch of drunk monkeys pulling shit out of random sci-fi and fantasy light novels, but all in all, their way of doing crazy and doing everything over-the-top actually manages to reach and break through the “so-bad-it’s-good” threshold. As long as you don’t really pay attention to the plot and focus more instead on Akuto’s manly body and intense “maoh” eyes, this show is pretty fine. Would’ve been better too if they animation quality was a bit more consistent though.

Anyways, half the fun of this show is also thanks to Sphere’s REALOVE:REALIVE OP, which totally kinda fits the whole “style-over-substance” aesthetic. Overall, not a show you should be taking seriously though, but quite fun when you’re pretty tired from work and just want something stupid to watch.

Okay, I am running out of shit to talk about this, so I’ll end it here.

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Hurr, the Claw is back! And double the grabbing power too!

… oh Poplar-chan, you.

I guess the genes really run well in Takanashi’s family.

Hurr durr, Inami’s eyes of contempt.

Yeah, Rena would omochikaeri her as well.

“Dangerous animal! Approach with care!”… is what this whole picture is saying.

Man, there’s still another episode. Can’t wait to see how the date between Takanashi and Inami will go.

P.S. Vote for me

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Plan explanation chapter. Since it’s pretty much mostly exposition prior to the climax, I’ll just skip the details. Instead, I’ll jump to the crowning moment of awesome of the chapter.

Uh-oh… surprise attack!

Yue’s like going, “Noooooo…. not again!!”

Oh fuck yeah, Tsukuyomi gets owned. Period. Now this more like Negima! Tsukuyomi has a really small neck though, for some reason.

As I said earlier, it’s a bridge+exposition chapter so it was pretty much lots of talking and plan-explanation. One of the funnier parts was Luna-suna, giving the gang information to infiltrate the Old Ostia by looking as if she was receiving them via radio waves. There was also the joke by Paru-sama that the Gravekeeper’s palace looks like the tower from Dragonball or something.

An important information revealed this chapter was that the Gravekeeper’s palace is -indeed- a gravekeeper’s place. Literally. Seems like there’s a gravekeeper clan of sorts in Ostia that holds the sacred task of guarding graves, etc etc etc. One of these days, Akamatsu should release an Expanded Universe guide to Negima or something. I’d buy it.

Well, final arc is starting now! Things should be pretty exciting for the next few months!

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Lol what, the beginning 30 seconds are like pulled out from some summer Hollywood movie climax. But it’s okay since it’s Kanade-chan~

Good bye guys, you were one of the better aspects of the show.

Holy fuck, T.K.’s tornado kick move was fucking win. And this. THIS…!!!

Kanade performs a little “carpet bombing”. Literally.

Yes, apparently so! Good thing she’s not easily angered.

DUN DUN DUN!! FINAL BOSS APPEARS! HOLY SHIT IT’S XELLOS ISHIDA AKIRA!

(Geez, how much money are you throwing away with this little stunt, Maeda)

Xellos Ishida Akira’s character offers an interesting proposition to Yurippe.

Oh god, that is a very very fine yandere face there, Yurippe.

But she decides to stick to her guns (literally) and finish her mission.

Prompting her to feel like “graduating”…

But it looks like she’s got a few subjects to finish first!

Relatively entertaining episode that was at least consistent with the tone throughout, without trying to punch your face with random outlandish humor when they want some lighter moments. Then again, I think we got used to it over the last ten episodes.

But still, what the fuck are you trying to do here Maeda? I don’t fucking understand a single shit about the infodump about the original programmer of the Angel Player software and how he turned himself in to some NPC to wait for some girl that “graduated” before him and shit and wrote some random AI construct program written by Ishida Akira to perform a forced purging if someone found love in this metaverse.

And shit, he fucking did it, a metaverse within this metaverse when Yurippe had that little downtime after getting ambushed and shit. Geez, that was pretty annoying.

Anyways, it looks like the whole gang will finally “graduate” next week. I hope it’s at least coherent.

P.S.

[21:25:57 Jun-19] <@Kurogane> jesus
[21:26:09 Jun-19] <@Kurogane> what the fuck was Maeda trying to do in Angel Beats! 12
[21:28:57 Jun-19] <%Komidol> I think the plot direction is something like this: http://i49.tinypic.com/1fw7md.png
[21:29:14 Jun-19] <%Komidol> I think he basically made it so none of the plot up until that point really mattered.

Yeah, he’s pretty spot on.

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Yamadaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! When an episode starts with her, you know for sure this is going to be a great episode.

Right off the bat, a misunderstanding is brewing in Wagneria this week…

Oh lol Yamada Impression.

Uh-oh, this is going to get ugly….

…. or not. /r/ black-haired version of Kotori-chan plz.

GODDAMNIT, POPLAR IS TOO DAMN CUTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE………….

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUU——– INAMI KILLED THE CLAW!

Yes, goddamnit, yes! We need Poplar screentime plz.

Great episode overall, with the jokes coming full-on and Yamada just getting more and more awesome while Inami gets more and more cuter. Honestly the only complaint I would have for this episode would be that they didn’t give enough screentime to Poplar! Looks like the finale will rectify that…

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Pretty boring and bullshit episode. Kanade’s wings were awesome though.

Otonashi is nearly criminal in his unawareness of Kanade being another human soul as well. My god, how ignorant can you get!

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Yes, this is very big spoiler page. And the “full-metal heart” line just cracked me up.

After nearly a decade and capturing the hearts and minds of countless fans, spinning off to two TV animated series and a movie, the Full Metal Alchemist manga has just finally ended.

Overall, it was a pretty action packed ending as Ed pounded the fuck out of “Father” with significant help from Greed, sacrificing himself to deal a decisive blow to Father. God gives Father his just desserts afterwards too. Ed subsequently then sacrificing his alchemy abilities to save Alphonse was a great touch and it was good to see the brothers set out to achieve what they wanted, after paying very great costs.

Generally happy endings all around as things return back to normal, etc etc but man… after nearly 7 years since getting hooked to it, I finally got to see one scene I wanted the most out of the story…..

*Pssssshfhhhhhbbbbtttt. cough cough hack cough* Hahahahahaha oh wow, Edward. I have to really commend you on having one of the most cheesiest yet original confession lines ever. Extra points for saying it in such a straight face too.

“all of it”!?! At this point the grin on my face just couldn’t go away.

D’aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwww. Winry’s just so cute in this page T_T.

Oh god, that was just so touching. So glad that Arakawa-sensei dedicated so much pages to Ed x Winry at the end and not leave it as if it was already destined. Seeing Ed’s confession was worth it, really, and Winry’s just so darn cute with her reactions. Glad the “love triangle” that I was worried about didn’t happen in the end. Alphonse went for the exotic choice, hehe.

Well.. that’s all really, FMA’s ending was pretty much well done and tied up all the loose ends, but what really made it stand out for me was Ed’s confession to Winry. Ah… can’t believe that I’m actually older than them when I first started following them while I was about their age in the story too. Hurr….

P.S. I guess I should watch Brotherhood when it’s all done.

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