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Archive for the ‘Kurogane’ Category

Oh wow, what, Akamatsu. Seriously? You’re making them take a bath first?!

…well admittedly, Negi DOES need one after all that’s gone down and all.

IMFINEWITHTHIS.JPG

Oh god…. must remind self, “This is Fakesuna. This is Fakesuna.”

Durr hurr hurr, got cockblocked by the rest.

Uh-oh. Mana is probably very pissed that her success rate is on the chopping block here.

Ooohh! Negi takes the shot for Fakesuna!

And actually spars with Mana for her! Truly a real Man that cares for his girls, whether fake or real.

Holy shit! That’s pretty damn pimpin’ there, Negi.

Fuck yes! Kissing her in to submission. From now on, Negi will have the nickname of “Kissminator”.

Fakesuna finally revealed! What will they be doing with her?! “Interrogations”, Mana-style?

Oh wait. They have the Diarium Ejus, shouldn’t be too hard with levelled up Badass Nodoka to find out everything. This should prove to be interesting. And I wonder what will Shiori’s Artifact be.

But really, starting the chapter with Fakesuna giving Negi a bath was rather cheating of Akamatsu! Makes it harder and all to treat her as an enemy. Plus, the shippers are going to be ALL OVER that. As if there’s not enough vertices in the Grand Negi Love Polygon already.

Too bad 284’s on break so there’s a wait for the next one. Itching to see the counterattack of the Negi Party soon.

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Love is ultimately

a choice between making yourself happy

or everyone else happy.

Just feeling philosophical today. Pic is semi-related.

©2010 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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The damn geezer that started everything. Wonder what happened to him?

Probably the most decent adaptation J.C. Staff has done that veered in to original story territory and came out looking better than its original. Final episode of Railgun seriously didn’t disappoint, with an ample serving of action, heartwarming and awesome.

Heheh, Kuroko double-teaming with the ojou-sama.

Reminded me of GTO a bit here.

Mikoto’s Crowning Moment of Awesome #1 of this episode; combi-Railgun attack with Kuroko. Obviously her range is limited to 50m due to her usage of coins. Beatrice Telestina should’ve figured that out from common sense. Extra PWN points for reusing her own mecha’s weapon back at her. Also I’m glad the action scenes in the second OP were used, albeit with different backgrounds.

Of course, like any good final boss, there is always a Round 2 before it ends.

Fuck yeah, Saten-san!

Mikoto’s Crowning Moment of Awesome #2.

And finally, Kiyama gets her wish fulfilled. Still, those kids are brutally honest.

And happy endings all around. めでたし、めでたし~~

A great episode to cap things off, I loved how the OP’s were used as insert songs at both of Mikoto’s showdown moments with Beatrice Telestina. There are some great, albeit slighly cheesy, lines in the episode that I really liked, such as Kiyama’s “A teacher can’t give up on her students!” and generally Mikoto’s lines to Telestina. Quite hard to see those nowadays, for me.

The ending generally wrapped up the Level Upper arc nicely, with original storyline appended to the anime actually feeling like part of the story rather than some tacky add-on. Sure, there’s a few loose ends around, but those are really inconsequential in the big picture. Besides, it does give them some threads to resume in Railgun S2, should they need to fill up time in case the Sisters Arc can’t fully fill up a two-cour run.

Looks like no future project announcements at the end here, some people apparently were expecting Index S2 announcement. I guess they still haven’t finalized stuff for that yet. Next season, J.C. Staff is to be occupied with Kaichou wa Maid-sama and Uragiri-something until Fall. Looks like they’re changing their target to shoujo for now. Well, hopefully Railgun manga will wrap up the Sisters arc in time for Railgun S2 in Fall, but we’ll see. Index S2 is also a safe bet for Fall, but there might also be Shana S3 somewhere along the lines.

Overall though, I did enjoyed watching Railgun, despite some slower, character building moments at the beginning of the series and the middle after the Level Upper arc finished. Some of those actually led somewhere at the arc conclusion, and those that didn’t gave the world of Railgun a lot more character to it. I mean, who didn’t like the episode where Uiharu went Limits Off or the one where the dorm supervisor had a crush. Coupled with some really nice action scenes and dialogue, not to mention two extremely memorable OP’s by fripside, Railgun anime is definitely a keeper for me. A 7 out of 10.

©2010 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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So let me get this straight….

0verflow’s latest game, Cross Days, has a new male protagonist. That is also the hottest new girl in the game. THAT GETS FUCKED BY MAKOTO IN EIGHT DIFFERENT ENDINGS OF THE GAME. And half the sex scenes are of both of them.

Nice. Fucking. Trap. ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ｱﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ / ＼/ ＼

Fuck you, Japan.
Fuck you, 0verflow.
(most importantly) Fuck you, sagematt.

©2010 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Hurr…. Soranowoto going in to serious mode now at the 11th episode.

Noel’s past is touched upon (The Witch of Helvetia; The Invisible Reaper sounds kinda cool).

We find out that Roman = Germany in the series.

And confirmation that Filicia is a raging lesbian.

Oh yes. Very VERY confirmed. Poor Kureha’s so confused now.

But yeah, finally, Soranowoto’s living up to it’s “war anime” billing. Good thing I stuck through it.

Now I hope to at least see some people dying before Rio inevitably stops the war with her trumpets efforts.

©2010 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Tsuchida finally confesses to Yamamoto-sensei!

Whoa! Very manly there, Tsucchi!

(・∀・)イイ!! (・∀・)イイ!! (・∀・)イイ!!

YE━━━━━━ d(ﾟ∀ﾟ)b ━━━━━━…. !! Wait what?!

Oh wow, that sure sucks.

Whoa, even more ouch.

Unbelievably perceptive to the point of cruelty. Poor Tsucchi.

ｳﾜｧｧ—–｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡—–ﾝﾝﾝﾝ

Tsucchi road to true love is really going to be very hard road to walk. Especially with how unbelievably unperceptive Yamamoto-sensei is. Well granted, confessing in a karaoke box after having a fuckton of drinks isn’t exactly the ideal way to convey your message seriously, but still…..

Ah well, you will just have to try again, Tsucchi. For now, I guess you should be happy you got to see her in moments like this…

Slightly drunk Yamamoto-sensei is very dangerous

… especially with those two pseudo-twintails. That was cute.

On a sidenote, what the hell is going on with the endings. Getting more and more incomprehensible by the episode. Experimenting with stuff there, Gainax?

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Evil bitch finally showing her true colors this week.

Meanwhile, Uiharu meets up with Kiyama and persuades her to do something useful.

Unfortunately the bitch throws them out.

Of course…. Mikoto isn’t all very happy about that.

Shit… she’s totally channelling Beatrice here.

“Dame da, dame da, zen zen dame da!!!!”

Obviously, getting pwned. No one faces Beatrice without preparation and wins.

Lol, Kongou-san finally gets to do something awesome for a change.

Saten-san’s Crowning Moment of Friendship.

Thankfully, knocks some sense in to Misaka. And the rest too, for a good change.

Saten-san is awesome this week.

And it’s payback time.

The character development and fillers are starting to pay off with this arc finally going in to serious mode, now that Telestina “Beatrice” Lifeline finally outs herself as the Big Bad. Still, the connection with the Skillouts was a bit iffy, them being only guinea pigs for her little side project. I wonder how are they going to deal with that annoying piece.

Obviously, the real hero of this episode was Saten. In a cast where 75% of them are generally stubborn and obstinate, she’s the real guiding voice of reason for everyone else and it’s a marvel to see how her character’s really been developed when you compare it to the manga, where she generally takes a backseat after the Level Upper arc. Someone higher-up in the production committee must really like her a lot. Who needs ESP when you have the power of FRIENDSHIP! Although I still giggled a little when she took a baseball bat to join them for the smackdown time with Telestina.

Hurr, so next week, final episode? Gonna be sad to see it end.

©2010 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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So finally, after 9 months of the movie being out and me generally avoiding the spoilers (or ignoring them), I got to watch Evangelion 2.0 in full cinematic glory.

First off, the story is finally diverging from the TV series and generally I like this new direction.

Shinji is lot more hot-blooded this time round. I was expecting to go “fuck yeah, Asuka” for the movie, but it was pretty much “fuck yeah, Shinji” a lot more. The parts when he faced off the Eighth and the Tenth Angels was more from Gurren Lagann than Evangelion. Seriously, I went like “Is this really Shinji?!” a lot of times in the movie. Overall, I think his character’s really changed for the best and while it’s weird to say this, but Neo-Shinji really earns my respect for his actions.

Oh god, Asuka’s new test plugsuit!

This version of Asuka is a lot more… tragic compared to the TV series. She’s still the same obstinate person from the TV series, but she opens up a lot more this time round. There was two really tender scenes in the movie, firstly when Asuka has a sleepless night and crawls beside Shinji, and one more while she was talking to Misato about how she always thought being alone was fine, but ever since meeting the others, she started thinking that being with others can be nice as well. I almost cried a bit then. Maybe it’s also the lack of screentime as well, but Rebuild Asuka also comes off a little less overbearing as well. Too bad she’s the unlucky Unit 03 test pilot this time .

Rebuild Rei is possibly the most extreme change of characterization so far, with her starting to develop real emotions for Shinji and actually taking action to “make him feel warm and fuzzy”. Man, that elevator faceoff between Asuka and Rei was pretty legendary as well. I was like “oh wow, is this Rei?!”. Plus, she’s actually smiling a lot more now! Probably a huge change for Rei fans to take in. And Shinji x Rei fans are probably going to talk about the final 30 mins of the movie for years to come.

Very casual

New character Mari, very convincingly voiced by Maaya Sakamoto (she has the best English of the whole Japanese cast!!), is truly a force-of-nature on her own. An attention stealer at every scenes she appear, she has feral quality to her that makes even certain doom seem like casual everyday life for her. But thankfully, she never steals the thunder out of from the old cast, which was something I was hoping not to happen. Still, she is different and unique enough that she does deserve a place in the Evangelion pilot roster.

Overall, the new character dynamics makes them a lot more “human” than previously, especially Asuka with her. I really like this version of Asuka, as she is more honest to herself. Rei is finally starting to have a real character of her own, instead of being the idealized doll of the series. Mari is proves to be an interesting addition to the whole series and we have yet to see her true role in the big picture. Finally, Shinji is pretty much turning in to Simon, a good or bad change depending on how you like the original series.

Other aspects of the movie I’d like to mention out is the technical quality. While the first movie had a lot recycled scenes from the TV series, 2.0 is where the new vision of Evangelion truly shines through. The Angels look extremely amazing, awe-inspiring yet threatening at the same time. The Eighth and the Ninth was truly visual eyecandy, not to mention 8th was done in by a Inazuma Kick homage by Asuka. Tokyo 3 is a less sterile city as well, thanks to the addition of the scenes that show how daily life around the city is like. While minor, it makes the city feel more alive and adds to the “ugh, ouch” scenes where parts of the city is destroyed. Oh and the part where Kaji brings the gang out for a trip to a Marine Life Restoration Center also makes the world of Eva feel very post-apocalyptic as well.

Another is the accompaniment music pieces chosen for two important scenes of the movie. Firstly, Kyou no Hi ha Sayonara played during the destruction of Unit 03 was truly a mindfuck. On the other hand, Tsubasa wo Kudasai was a profound choice for the climax of the movie. On one hand, it was pretty awesome, on another hand, I felt it was rather LOLRANDOM. I had thought it was a weird the OST had those tracks in it, but now… yeah, I can see why.

I’d really like to rewatch the whole thing again, but the epic cockblocking censorship of the local screening copies don’t really make it worth it. Well, the Blu-Ray’s coming out in 2 months time! That’s an acceptable waiting time. Hoping to get an Asuka scene for the filmstrip this time.

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A rather solid episode this time, balancing character development and action.

I quite liked the owner of the Deviant Blade this episode, Tsuruga Meisai, since she’s pretty much the first sane owner of the swords that we’ve met so far. She had a genuinely good purpose in life and a tragic backstory, plus she was rather awesome as a character (like how she tried to use some “tactics” on Shichika on the eve of their battle), so I was rather sad that she had to die at the end of the episode.

But, as Shichika said, she was, alas, also “poisoned” by the sword and probably wouldn’t have gone on too well without it, so in a way it was a mercy killing by him. Well, I sure hope Togame makes sure their guarantees to her will be kept.

So far, those Maniwani guys are turning in to the generic small fry of the month and I really gotta say it’s a bit LOL after all the fuss about them in episode one. At least this month’s Maniwani wasn’t as annoying as last month’s backwards talker. Sabi Hakuhei’s catchphrase is really LOL no matter how many times I listen to it and next month is going to be about him. The preview sure looks promising on the action aspects, with rocks and islands getting sliced and diced.

Not much else to say about this episode, apart from Togame being rather cute when Shichika carried her, himesama-dakko-style up that 1000-step staircase.

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A slower-paced chapter after the amazing shit of the past few ones, but still an important one nonetheless for the Negi Party to gain some R&R, healing (severe magic poisoning on Negi’s part) and organizing the information gained.

Firstly, Nodoka reveals the important points about the Lifemaker Code…

So…. One Key to rule them all. Heh. Very LOTR-ish don’t you think. Especially with the 7 Grand Master keys and the final Great Grand Master one. Still, a lot of specifics haven’t been explained yet. Like what’s Cosmo Entelachia’s motive and such.

And finally….

… time to deal with Fakesuna that’s been around since… wow, I forgot. Feels like it’s been a long time since Asuna got some spotlight in the past few tens of chapters. I wonder how this will turn out to be.

On a sidenote… where have all the proper Negima scanlators have gone to? This chapter was like Watermark Hell… not to mention the fact the past three chapters are only available on online manga readers as well. I miss the days of decent releases by Enigma.

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