I was waiting for this!!! Too bad the artist didn’t change Kyousuke’s gender xD
I thought about writing OreImo’s gender bending version but wasn’t sure whether it’s a good idea or not. Seeing this picture makes me want to write it right away though xDD
image@eshuu
-Katanagatari ~ 10/12: To me the main couples are silly and boring -> character development is boring -> episode 9 and 10 are average because the atmosphere were good.
-Shiki ~ 12/22: Natsuno’s dad is incredibly stupid, it doesn’t help that he is stubborn as well, his son and wife are dying but he doesn’t even realize that there is something wrong with them.
-Heartcatch Precure ~ 37/??: My enjoyment with this series is being killed by Cure Sunshine, she is boring as fuck, her partner is annoying as shit. More Blossom, Marine, Moonlight and some one lock those two things up please.
-MM! ~ 4/12: It’s surprisingly good, MM! isn’t excellent but it’s really entertaining. The main 3 characters – Tarou, Yuno, Mio – are really cute and likeable, the comedy is fun and there is no ero-fanservice. The drama is a little unnatural sometimes but all in all this series is enjoyable.
-Arakawa Under the Bridge x2 ~ 3/??: So far so good. It’s like watching the first season.
-Star Driver ~ 4/25: The villains are cool and pretty interesting. Takuto is active and decisive, he has a strong personality, but he is also the only person on the main side that has a character and actually does something, everyone else is just background. Wako is boring as fuck, no wonder she looks similar to Itsuki, they are both snore-fest characters. In some senses though, Wako is even worse than Itsuki, she doesn’t do anything, she doesn’t talk much, most of the times she just standing/sitting there and looks around/ is looked at. Itsuki is really Sunshine compared to her. Also what the heck is that stupid fox? He doesn’t do anything but acting cute (read: retarded) and funny (read: annoying). He is even more useless than Wako, at least Wako can be used as an excuse for Takuto to fight.
-Invasion Squid Girl ~ 3/??: The later episodes aren’t as funny as the first one but it’s still a nice comedy. Chizuru’s character type is overused and I don’t like her, lucky they don’t bring up her “power” often.
-Otome Yokai Zakuro ~ 3/??: I’m glad Zakuro isn’t a shallow tsundere like in episode 2. She has opened up to Agemaki and their relationship is coming up nicely. They have hinted about the main villains and I’m looking forward to that.
-The World God only Knows ~ 3/??: moe Elcea = do NOT want. She isn’t moe at all, she is stupid and generic and retarded. That is the only problem I have with this series though, it’s pretty fun otherwise. Hopefully she won’t have much screen-time. On a related note, I’m a little annoyed at Scamp’s complain about Keima’s blushing, what kind of jerk that doesn’t even have a little feeling for the girl he is trying to get to like him? I wouldn’t have watched this if that was the case.
-Tantei Opera Milky Holmes ~ 2/??: There were 3 bloggers who don’t like that kind of lolis and fanservices watched and complimented it so it couldn’t be that bad right? It really isn’t that bad, the only grip I have with this show is Nero’s character, she has no positive trait. If they can do something about her this show will be pretty nice.
-Kuragehime ~ 1/11: The best anime this season in my opinion. I’m definitely looking forward to the next episode.
-Oreimo ~ 4/12: I’m dropping this for 2 reasons. First, Kyousuke is Kirino’s slave and he doesn’t look like he wants to change that. Second, Kirino is a brat, she gets all sad and victim because of her hobby but it’s obvious that if she didn’t have that hobby, she’d totally look down on otakus and think of them as garbage. When I think about that, her actions became hypocritical and disgusting. I may watch the next episode because of Ayase but I don’t want to waste anymore of my time with this series.
image@eshuu
It’s just as Landon said, Kirino is only an annoying bitch when she is with her brother. It’s actually pretty fun to see her hanging out with her classmates and otaku friends, she really loves both parts of her life and I can see that. I also like people who have unwavering passion so that is another +point for her. Kirino and Kyousuke’s realtionship is screwed up though. When they are not together or don’t do things related to each other, they are pleasant characters. But when they do, Kirino becomes a bitch and Kyousuke is starting to show his sister obsession, yandere symptoms.
In this episode Kirino’s dad found out about her hobby and insulted it, which I think is completely normal. Kirino ran away and cried out of frustration because of that and she couldn’t say anything back, she is just a little girl anyway. Kyousuke confronted his dad to help Kirino, and this is the deal. Their dad looked down on otaku because of social outlook, he himself didn’t know much about otaku. During the conversation, he remained calm and collected, he listened to what Kyousuke want to say and replied accordingly, he showed respect. Kyousuke on the other hand, showed no respect whatsoever, all he had was fear, he was trying to defeat this boss for Kirino, instead of trying to explain things to his dad, he kept yelling and shoving things into his face. That was still in the acceptable realm, he is just a high schooler, asking him to have a mature conversation maybe a little too much. But then he went as far as finishing his yelling by threatening to hit his dad while his dad hadn’t said anything yet. That, is not what a son, a brother would do, that is what an yandere lover would do. Kyousuke’s head is so completely filled with Kirino that his action became unreasonable. I was surprised his dad didn’t give him a slap for being so insolent and full of himself.
I think they tried too hard to make a “Knight in shining armor rescues Princess” scene because their dad is by no mean a bad or unreasonable person, he is just a strict and caring father. Actually I was on his side the whole episode, human are judgmental creatures, if your hobby is something most people don’t understand and/or have a bad view of it because of society, it’s expected of you to explain it to people whom you want to accept you. Otherwise it’s childish to complain why you’re not understood. Of course Kirino is just a child so it’s normal for her to not be able to stand up for herself or complain about that.
I wonder if Kirino will call Kuroneko an emo someday, or maybe she did but I don’t remember. I should pay more attention to details.
Since OreImo started airing, there have been a lot of posts about how people can relate to Kirino’s feelings,circumstance and how similar her situation to theirs. Which are impossible for me to relate to. Because since I started reading manga/watching anime I’ve never met anyone who seriously looked down on them or laughed at me for loving these things. I suppose I’m just lucky but my road to anime/manga has always been smooth.
Anyway since some people wrote about their fan-life, I feel the urge to write about them too /o/ I’ll start with Middle School since well, elementary kids love cartoon and picture books in general.
I transferred in 8th grade so there were 2 phases here.
-6-7th grade: There were at least 6 kids with manga-style drawings including me. Almost everyone read manga, some went to the manga store on a daily basic to rent them (not me though, I’m cheap and I prefer to own the thing), some bought manga weekly, some discussed Pokemon everyday since Pokemon was airing at that time, there was this boy who was really good at drawing Pokemon, and there was this girl who was scolded because she kept drawing in the middle of class. Basically it’s a heaven for manga fans. When my teacher told us to write a short paragraph to practice grammar, I even wrote something that looked like it was taken out of a manga.
We went to school in the morning, stayed there all day and came home in the afternoon. All students must take a nap in the mid-noon so they wouldn’t feel sleepy in the afternoon when they self-study or go to class. Apart form the classroom, each class had 2 rooms -one for boys, one for girls- with beds and small tables to rest and self-study. There were people get caught every week (or even day I’m not sure) for reading teen magazines and manga in napping/self-study time. There were always some manga in teachers’ desks, I think my school’s always-closed-library was full of confiscated manga/magazines/books.
Needless to say I was full of manga-related activities all the time, and some of my friends were just as enthusiastic as me.
Lol moment: My friend and I tried to design our own characters based on Magic Knight Rayearth. I was so jealous of her drawing that I cried and she cried while trying to comfort me. We stood in front of the school yard crying where people were passing by to go home.
-8-9th grade: There were less manga fans in this class than my previous class but some of them were more hardcore fans. I started to join a forum, making friends online and went to small conventions organized by fans because of a friend. She and I also made some manga drawing project but it never went anywhere. I suppose it was because we spent too much time dreaming about a harem full of cool and hot bishounen. She also told me more about anime, but I was more interested in manga and she was more interested in dreaming about bishounen so we didn’t really watch them together. One noticeable change for me was I went from “I don’t want anything to do with shounen-ai/yaoi” to “I still don’t like them but I don’t hate them”. I played my first eroge at this time, I didn’t know what it was when I bought it, I only saw a pretty cover and liked that anime-style.
It was also the first and last time I made a family online with other fellow fans, a huge one at that, from great grandchild to great grandfather/mother. This was also one of the better time for Vietnamese manga, they published 2-3 different magazines and some groups, artists were pretty well-known. One of my fellow classmate/fan’s sister was in a big group so she told me a little bit of this and that about that group’s drama when I asked.
Lol moment: My online younger brother (who was actually one year older than me) said he would find my ideal boyfriend for me if I told him.
-Me: It’s impossible. He is just a fantasy.
-Him: Just say it, I can find him.
-Me: He has strange hair and eyes color. There is no way you can find someone like that.
-Him: Then he is just a foreigner.
-Me: Not really a foreigner.
-Him: Geez just tell me.
-Me: Umm… well… he is 1m80 tall, has long light-yellow hair and silver eyes.
-Him: Well he can use contact lenses and a wig.
That doesn’t count! -A-”
There was less fans here than before. Though it’s more like I moved from one kind of group to another. Some of my classmates did read manga but they were like newbie/casual readers compared to me, they also liked the manga that I hated so I didn’t really talk with them. There were some fans in my neighbor class but I didn’t bother with them either.
I introduced yaoi to a friend, she then told her closest friend about yaoi, they then became hardcore yaoi fans together. They were NOT manga or anime fans, they were just yaoi fans. They literally saw yaoi everywhere, from classmates, friends, lovers, cram school teachers, favourite bands (Linkin Park), movies to completely strangers. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how their brains work.
Since there was no fans for me to interact with in real life, I came to the internet. I didn’t like that old forum that much so I searched for new ones and found a bunch of interesting fan boys, then through one way or another, I became friends with some of them and lot of dramas ensued. Anyway from that point on, I only made online friends and I’ve met most of them in real life.
I also started watching anime seriously and had fun with fandom activities.
Lol moment: Took a few months to finish telling my yaoi friend the whole story of Angel Sanctuary with the break time in class. I almost did the same thing with her closest friend, but we didn’t meet each other much so it was better for her to read the manga.
My dad was away most of the time so only mom and my younger brother count.
-Younger brother: He is a casual reader, if I buy manga he will read them but that is it. His interest is something else.
-Mom: Her view on manga changed as I grew up. She is pretty open-minded and supportive. She used to forbid manga and even teared some of my manga when I was in middle school because she wanted me to concentrate on studying but she is cool with it now.
Moment 1: I was in high school, my mom told me she wanted to talk about something, we sit seriously in the living room, then she asked about my porn (hentai) in my computer. She refused to say who used my computer and told her about that, I thought knowing who that person was may make things really awkward so I didn’t try to find out. I told her I was old enough to know what I was watching, and I just watched that stuffs because I want to know things. After that I processed to tell her about Japanese manga/anime industry, how a-m isn’t just stuff for kids, how they are serious business and for adults. We talked and the conversation ended with my mom telling me “Don’t let your younger brother know about your porn”.
Moment 2: My mom’s co-worker/good friend has a son who loves drawing manga, he is in college but he doesn’t care about studying and spends most of his time drawing. His dad (my mom’s friend) has an acquaintance and she offered him a job which was drawing picture books for her. After telling me that, my mom asked: “Since you like drawing so much, do you want to draw manga like him?”. I was really surprised, I didn’t expect her to ask me something like that at all. After a moment I explained to her that the kind of manga I want to draw isn’t what they want. That was last month.
I hate anyone who badmouth stuffs I like. I’ll use HunterxHunter key chain, Honey&Clover ringtone, post Angel Sanctuary stickers all over my pen when I want. Anyone who have problems with that can go to hell for all I care. I’m used to being an outsider for various reasons so being isolated because of my hobby wouldn’t bother me one bit.
image@eshuu
Where is my Soredemo? D:
Watching:
- Heartcatch Precure: Cure Moonlight is awesome.
- Shiki: I still don’t find Muroi and Sunako’s relationship interesting.
Picked:
- Ore no Imouto: One of the most hyped series this season. Let’s see if Kirino’s character will get any better. I feel like she is a slightly better version of Taiga since she doesn’t really use violence but it’ll be annoying if people keep fawning over such a bitch and keep saying how cute/ well developed she is.
- Arakawa Under the Bridge SS2: Still funny as ever. Watching this makes me liking this series again and want more of it. Unlike when I watched Durarara!! episode 12.5, I guess the last arc of Durarara!! made me dislike the main trio so much seeing them on the screen irks me, if only they are gone for good. Anyway, looking forward to more Ric & Nino’s development as well as Nino’s past.
- Star Driver: No love triangle shit plz. Character related stuffs are always the deal breaker in a series for me.
- Otome Youkai Zakuro: I loved the first episode, hope they will keep it up.
Testing:
- MM!: I like that art. The story can either be nice or screwed up, need more episodes in to see which way it will take. This is not the kind of series I want to marathon so if I don’t follow it I’ll drop it.
- Invasion Squid Girl: The first episode was really funny and I want to pick this series up. But I can’t watch too many comedy at the same time and I’ve already watched Arakawa so I’ll have to decide between this and MM. Unlike MM though, Squid girl is easy to marathon, so if it’s still good and I decide to pick MM, I’ll watch it after some of my currently watching series end.
- Bakuman: The manga turned too shitty for me to continue. Let’s see if the anime version is any better, “drawing manga” anime/manga is always my weakness after all.
- The world God only knows: First episode looked good so far. But I’ll need to watch more before deciding if I want to continue.
On-hold:
- Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt: Because there are too many series I want to watch this season. I’ll watch it later if most of the feedback are good.
- Psychic Detective Yakumo: This isn’t what I was expecting at all. Some people say maybe it’ll get better so I’ll wait for feedback.
Waiting for:
- Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru
- Kuragahime
image@danbooru
Star Driver
This one is pretty fun to watch xD But it’s kind of hard to pint point what I feel about it, I think this kind of series will need a few episodes to know what it is really like. I also hope there will be more girls later, having only one girl as the main character with tons of boys around isn’t fun :\ Her stomach grumbling joke isn’t really funny either, it was fine in the 2 scenes in episode 1 but I hope they don’t make it a running gag. I lol’ed at Galatic Pretty Boy xDDD Really wtf! But his transformation form and mecha is pretty cool~ The animation was really pretty too, though as people normally say, it probably will drop a lot in the next episodes. Anyway rating ep 1: 8/10 – Picked.
Ore no Imouto
This series’ name is just too damn long. Anyway it’s not bad, I’m actually pretty interested in ore no imouto. The only problem is I feel like this anime is too fan-pandering. Though I know it’s not the producer team’s fault but the original source, they actually did a great job here with the anime’s pacing, the manga version is worse. Kirino is really a bitch, if she keep acting like an insolent ignorant brat like that there is a high chance I will drop this series out of my despite for her. Rating ep 1: 7,5 – Picked.
Oh I forgot, why is every girls in this anime blushing permanently? Do they put stickers on their face? That is really stupid, please take it off -_-
And lol saimoe 2011 prediction: Kirino will do well.
