2/26/10

[The Daily Otaku][#1] (2/26/2010)

Check out my other blogs: [Reviews][Art Sketches & WIPs]
Check out my online novels: [My Uncle's Bakery][A.N.D.]

Changing up my blog again :D rofl. I'm incorporating Daily Manga Typing into this overall otaku series of blog posts - not that all my blog posts are pretty much otaku blog posts :P IM AN OTAKU WHO JUST CANT SEEM TO HELP BEING ONE SO GET USED TO IT. on to the blog *dissipates into a puff of smoke and reappears back in front of a computer*

~Anime I've enjoyed Recently~
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Chobits: I read the manga about 4 years ago, and it's really surprising I never watched the anime two nights and the night before ago considering it is an anime about humanoid robots- and that is my favorite kind of anime. The anime was pretty disappointing... and I find the manga was much more well done. I do understand how Chobits seems to be a favorite anime among a lot of anime friends I know... but it just can not compare to other anime having to deal with humanoid robots. Sorry Chobits (the anime version), you have failed me T^T
malice@DOLL: I watched this because of a review done by ON,V and because I had asked on my Twitter what anime has stood out for you lately and that was Brent's response. Also, it's an ova about humanoid robots (more specifically of the sex bot type). Overall, it was an interesting and creepy watch. I honestly just did not get the ending. It seemed like a cop out 'it was all a dream' type ending imho. *shrugs*
Key the Metal Idol: This is an anime I had been wanting to watch, but barely got around to doing so. I watched episodes 1-13 in one sitting because it was just so intriguing. There's just something about old-ish anime ovas that focus on humanoid robots that just end up being really good.
Vandread II: I watched all of Vandread I and about 3/4ths of 2 back in 2009, and the other day I watched like 3 more episodes of II simply because I needed something with an English dub to "watch" while working on some art.
E's Otherwise: Early on in high school I watched about 10 episodes of this series and never got around to finishing it so tonight I started this anime from the beginning.

~Manga I've recently Enjoyed~
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We Were There vol.2: Hmm... well, all of a sudden the guy confesses to liking the girl. This is more of a mature shojo tbh, and it's kind of slow and the way the panels are confuse me at times but I bought 4 volumes so far in hopes that this would be good since it is the pretty famous Bokura ga Ita manga (as it is known as in Japan).
Phantom Dream vol.4: Of the 3 Takya series I own complete versions of, this one is my least favorite and the hardest one to follow. The first two volumes were fairly easy to read, but volume 3 and 4 threw me for a loop. The paneling and the story just kind of went all over the place. I do give Takya credit though, this is her first manga series other than a series of short stories. I have one more volume left to read in this series before I'm done.

2/22/10

Spring 2010 Anime PV (mini-version)

At the moment it's 1:37am and I don't really feel like posting a detailed preview blog, but I will in the next few days ^__^ for now, you can see some basic information and pictures for the spring anime here.

So excited to see that I have to hold back fan girl squeals when comes out:
Trigun: Badlands Rumble [movie] (April 24)

So want to watch:
Iron Man (spring 2010)
Rainbow (April)
Heroman (April)
Angel Beats (April)
Working!! (March 6)
Maid-sama! (April)
K-ON s.2 (April 6)

Plan to maybe watch:
Senko no Night Raid (April)
Arakawa Under the Bridge (April 4)
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao (April)
B gata H kei (April)
Hakuouki
Uragiri wa Boku no Mamae Shitteiru (April)
Mayoi Neko Overrun! (April)

Have no plans to watch:
Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei (April 22)
House of Five Leaves (April 15)
Giant Killing (April 4)

2/21/10

[Anime of the Week] (2/21-27/2010) Zaion ~i wish you were here~


# of Episodes: 4
Rating: Teen
Released: 2001
Synopsis: In the future, a meteor crashes into Earth and brings with it a virulent form of life. This virus is known as M34 and attacks humans, turning them into vicious monsters. Most of the human population is wiped out, thus government agencies are formed to fight the virus. One of the groups, NOA, inserts nanomachines into the bodies of its soldiers; these machines allow them to transform and fight off the infected. Unfortunately, the virus mutates and becomes too strong for NOA to handle. Now the fate of the world rests in the hands of 16-year-old girl with the power to defeat the virus.

[Daily Manga Typing][#2] (2/21/2010)

Added some more manga to my collection:
Black Bird 1-3
We Were There 4

Today (well, yesterday) at work I read the first two volumes of Black Bird... and it was pretty ok-ish. The manga itself is nothing out of the ordinary or special, and it is borderline josei/smut (which I've been addicted to lately >.>). In fact the manga is a lot like Love Monster... ok, I kind of lied but the themes are pretty much the same and the whole childhood friend thing and getting married is like the same! I can see myself buying Black Bird 'till the end because it's one of those shojos that won't let you stop reading until you finish it.

Today (the 21st) I started a manga called Are You Alice? which is based on both the Alice in Wonderland universe and a Japanese cd drama. So far I've read the first 3 chapters.

I'm also going back to reading a manga called Otaku no Musume-san which is about this otaku that finds out he has a daughter! Well, he ends up having to hide his otaku nature but ends up failing miserably. Currently on chapter 20

and I've found this manga called Say Hello to Black Jack that I really want to start reading. I also want to get back to reading Luck Stealer and Bakuman

2/17/10

[Daily Manga Typing][#1] (12/17/2010)

These past two or so weeks I've been lucky enough to be able to increase my manga collection by a significant amount. Here is the list:
Alice in the Country of Hearts 1
Bokurano Ours 1
Butterflies, Flowers 1
Crown of Love 1
Deadman Wonderland 1
Dogs 1 & 2
Kimi ni Todoke 3
Me & My Brothers 1 & 2
Millennium Snow 2
Otomen 5
Phantom Dream 1-5 (complete series)
Princess Ai and the Prism of Midnight Dawn 2
RE:play 3 (complete series)
We Were There 1-3

I've read most of these, so here is some commentary:
Alice in the Country of Hearts~ I'm impressed with this take on Alice in Wonderland, which there seems to be a current boom of adaptations out there. I liked how each version of the Alice characters were made bishounen style and Alice herself is not the girly girl from the version most people know (the Disney one). I can't wait for volume 2.
Butterflies, Flowers~ I've more recently gotten into the josei [def] side of manga, which is like realistic shojo that also usually ends up getting into smut XD (btw, a really good josei is Desire Climax) and this is a good example of josei. It's the first one I've bought and the story wasn't half bad. It was like a mix of Midnight Secretary and Desire Climax.
Crown of Love~ It seems the creator of Loveless can draw a manga that's not boys love, and that I approve of! I'm not a boys love fan, so when an artist who I like the style of who is an artist that is famous for boys love draws a normal shojo I'm of course gonna give that series a try ^_^ and this one is pretty ok considering it seems a lot like Skip Beat.
Deadman Wonderland~ AH HA, I read this one while at the hospital the other day and it was epic! This manga brought back my faith in Tokyopop because lately the quality of their manga was slacking when it came to paper quality but Tokyopop did really good with this one and I felt like I got what I paid for.
DOGs~ I started reading this series before but for some reason I ended up stopping. Later on I ended up watching the ova and fell in love with the story so when I found out Viz was going to release the manga I told myself I had to have it. And I love the style this artist has.
Millennium Snow~ It's like Twilight in the eyes of the manga-ka behind Orian High School Host Club.... 'cause it's by the same manga-ka! LOL. Apparently the second volume isn't the last but the series hasn't been completed >.>
Otomen~ I adore this manga-ka's style so darn much that when more from the artist comes out (I already have all of Blank Slate) that I'm buying it like I can't live without it! I really reccomend this series for shojo lovers and it is hilarious! I think every single manga fan should read this one.
Princess Ai PoMD~ Meh... the story got really interesting at the end but the magic of the first Ai series seems to have been lost in this one. The manga-ka seems to have gotten lazy with the way the art is at some points.
RE:play~ T__T I don't know why I was such a huge fan of this series when I first read volumes 1 and 2 because volume 3 made me realize how the series just did not flow well and the art style was like a hybrid mix of Bleach and DOGs.... which looked like a rip rather than a unique version. Oh, and the art was some what good in the first volume and got increasingly lazy looking towards the end.

[Anime of the Week] (2/14-20/2010) Adaptations of American stuffz

I've been really impressed these past few years with how Japan has adapted several American concepts (most of which are comics and recently video games) into anime and manga. Since this is my anime of the week feature on Adaptations of American stuffz I will only be focusing on the anime side... and no, not every American anime adaption will be mentioned here! Just the ones I know about and have seen or have seen the original American version >=D

Quite possibly the most famous would have to be the Animatrix! The Animatrix is one I still have yet to see and this is pretty pathetic considering how much of a Matrix fan I am (I've played several of the games and own all the movies thanks to my dad). The Animatrix is comprised of 9 episodes on one dvd; it was released back in 2003.


Batman Gotham Knight
This is possibly a favorite of mine, and I own the DVD because of how much I wanted to see it. Ha ha. And a really epic cool thing about this DVD is the guy who did the voice for the original Batman is the voice for Batman in this anime! WIN *thumbs up*
# of Episodes: 6
Rating: Teen
Released: 2008
Synopsis: From the producers of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight comes an original animated movie chronicling the establishment and progression of Bruce Wayne into Gotham City's legendary caped crusader through 6 standalone episodes: "Have I Got a Story for You" (the mythos of Batman from the minds of children), "Crossfire" (the initial distrust and the eventual gaining of it from the perspective of the police), "Field Test" (the compassion of Batman, even towards his enemies), "In Darkness Dwells" (tracking down Killer Croc and The Scarecrow to foil his plot of resurgence amongst the villainous of Gotham), "Working Through Pain" (a look back at Bruce's training to manage both the physical and psychological pains he would later endure as Batman), and "Deadshot" (a race against the clock to protect Lt. Gordon from a highly-renowned assassin).


Witchblade
I watched the entire anime series, but wasn't too impressed. The plot was ok and the characters were below average. Frankly, this one failed.
# of Episodes: 24
Rating: Mature
Synopsis:
In 22nd-Century Japan, Masane Amaha, one of the surviving catastrophe that destroyed Tokyo becomes the latest in an ancient line of women-only warriors to wield the mysterious sentient weapon known only throughout history as "the Witchblade". Protecting her little girl, she will face her worst fear ....


More recently Halo Legends was released, but I have yet to see it. Some other adaptations that are either coming out or are out already are Planet Hulk, an X-men anime, Blade, Wolverine and Iron Man.

2/10/10

[Anime of the Week](2/7-13/2010) Baka to Test to Shokanju

# of Episodes: 13
Rating: Teen
Synopsis: Advanced placement into a school of higher grade proof-reading is determined by the results of the Promotion Test strictly for class type. Ranging from A class with the best facilities anyone can offer all the way down to F Class which is composed of low dining tables, rotten tatami mats and other worn out facilities. Students can change classes by competing using the Examination Summons Battle system or ESB. Students summon characters with their equivalent test mark scores and use them to compete with other classes.