First off I want to reiterate how sincerely sorry I am for
being so lazy on posting here the past couple of weeks. I have been hammered
(not the good kind) with projects at school and I went home last weekend for my
birthday so I have really been putting these off. I will be resuming my
schedule of posting at least one thing a week starting this week.
So two anime that I have kind of left in the dark, Kotoura-san and Sasami-san@Ganbaranai have recently hit the halfway point for this
anime season at episode seven. I simply adore everything about Kotoura-san
but still find myself on the fence with Sasami-san@Ganbaranai.
So good stuff first; Kotoura-san!!!
I have been in love with this show ever since the first episode aired even if
the first episode had a completely different tone than the rest of the show. I
could go all fanboy on you and just say, “Alasdfkjdklj it’s so awesome blababla” but I rather give
you some concrete reasons to why it’s a good show. First things first; what the
hell has been going on? The show follows Haruka who for some reason was born
with the ability to read people’s minds. As she learns to harness this power
however, she unfortunately blabs about every little thing she hears so she ends
up telling everyone everything about each other (keep in mind she’s like five
or six years old so she doesn’t know any better). These actions result in her
losing all her friends and even causing her parents to divorce (ouch). All hope
seems lost until she meets Yoshihisa who seems to turn her world around.
Yoshihisa doesn’t mind that Haruka reads his mind and over a small period of
time, their circle expands to the ESP club at their school. Within the club,
Yoshihisa and Haruka meet Daichi, Yuiko, and later on Yoshihisa’s childhood
friend Hiyori joins. Essentially the show quickly evolves into a “What’s the club
going to do today?” sort of format. While this might provide a boring atmosphere
for some viewers, it’s the character interactions that keep me coming back for
more. The perverse Yoshihisa provides some hilarious moments between him and
Haruka since she can pretty much see every dirty thought he has (even about
other women). The show is also very slapsticky so if you are not a fan of short
punchline jokes then stay far away
from this show.
On the technical side of the show, the animation is kind of
hard to explain. On one hand it looks very simplistic but on the other its
color template and how light reflects off of characters and objects make it
look very appealing. I guess you can say it’s a generically awesome looking
anime. Sound wise I love the opening song as well as the ending. Music during the
show is pretty good but not Aria great.
Voice actors seem to be doing a good job so no complaints there.
Overall the show is just a blast to watch each week and with
some foreseeable plot devices coming to light, I can only hope that it will continue
to get better and better.
Lastly we have the very strange Sasami-san@Ganbaranai. At first I only kept watching this show for
two reasons; the unique looking animation and the WTF factor. The only anime I can think of to compare it to is Humanity Has Declined. It’s odd way of
presenting the information, humor, and plot is something almost straight out of
Humanity Has Declined but instead of
being placed in a post-World War w/e timeline, the show takes place in what
appears to be a modern day Japan setting. To quickly catch you up to speed, the
show takes around four episodes to actually tell you wtf is going on and why
Sasami is so damn important. Sasami is essentially part of a cult (ran away but
we all know that wouldn’t work out in the end) that glorifies the women and
transfers superpower like abilities to them. Oh they also treat the men of the
clan/cult as slaves. Sasami seems to be able to change reality around her unknowingly
so that’s why Tsurugi and her gang of misfits are around to keep the piece.
Other than the fix up gang and Sasami, the only recurring character is Sasami’s
brother Kamiomi who she seems to have a tsundere like attitude towards and
seems to also have a somewhat sexual attraction to (GEEZE NEVER SEEN THAT TYPE
OF CHARACTER BEFORE -__-). Each episode seems to be somewhat self-contained and
does not need any real prior knowledge to watch (other than the first couple
episodes) so feel free to jump in anywhere if you want to see if you like it.
If you do, make sure you then go start at episode one so you get all the little
things. Technical things aside, the plot of the show is just…strange and for me
not enough to keep me interested. It jumps around a lot and some episodes will
take almost the entire length to see wtf is going on. But in my honest opinion
you are only sticking around for the weird and also the awesome animation.
Like I stated previously, the animation in this show is quite
unique looking and just very appealing (to me). Colors are bright, character
models are defined but not at the same time (just like Humanity Has Declined), eyes look awesome (love me some great eye
animation), and the set pieces are pretty awesome. Now that I think about it
some more, this show shares a lot more things with Humanity Has Declined than just the slapstick humor. The animation
style is very closely related from how the character models are drawn to even
the way the eyes look. So if you liked how Humanity
Has Declined looked then you are in luck here. The animation is great even
though you should already know that since SHAFT are the ones animating it (Nisemonogatari, Bakemonogatari, Sayonara
Zetsubou Sensei, need I bring up more awesome looking SHAFT anime?). Oh
yeah sound; it’s good I guess?
Overall the show is just random so if you are into that kind
of thing give it a shot. Animation is quite good and the noise it makes isn’t
distracting.
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