That and it wouldn’t be Chirstmas without some KyoAni sad girl in snow.

Minami-ke / Minami-ke Okawari

I was a big fan of Minami-Ke in the Fall season and so Okawari was a must watch for me. The two seasons were kinda related (as they had gags from season 1 continuing in season two) although I guess it IS possible to watch Okawari first. Its kinda strange having a different studio pick up half way through (Doumu did Minami-ke and Asread did Okawari)… I kinda bunched them together, but I’ll give them separate ratings. First on Minami-ke. Good animation by Doumu… it had some stuff I really liked… like the tear-drop shaped mouths, bible-black eyes, Chiaki’s adhoge. The cast was amazing, I mean the three sisters were pretty much just the standard brainiac/beauty (closet banchou!), the troublemaker (closet control freak) and the tsun tsun. But put them all in the same house and it just works! But the most surprising is the amazing supporting cast! We got the always-confused Fujioka, the fantasizing Hosaka (who likes to strip himself down), the really confused Touma and her brothers (this whole family was introduced waaayyy too late), the broken Mako-cakes, Maki, Uchida and the list goes on and on. Just an amazing bunch of characters that have real dynamic and dispite the large cast, each character has a role to play (unlike say… in Gundam where we have Saji who does NOTHING, Louise that does NOTHING, Maria something Ishmail who does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and this list also goes on and on).

Okawari just continued off where the first season stopped. The strange thing is that it was animated by a different studio, Asread. At first I was skeptical about Okawari, I was used to Doumu’s character designs … and Asread had everyone with different hair colors (like Kana going from a brunette to a redhead) and omg Fujioka looks like he got 4 years older ~_~. Overall I’d have to say I liked Doumu’s version more then Asread’s, not only because I saw it first and thus I was more used to the art style, but season 1 also featured more Hosaka fantasies and bible black eyes. To make up for it, Mako-cakes had lots … and mean LOTS of love from Asread (maybe TOO much)… However, much to my surprise, Asread ended Okawari very nicely with a very appropriate Hosaka moment… Actually Minami-ke also ended with a Hosaka moment too, but not as funny. Funniest moments: WAAAAYYY too many.
Minami-ke
Minami-ke Okawari

And ohbytheway, I want an I AM BOSS t-shirt… D=

CLANNAD

I had really high expectations for this show (any show Kyo Ani choses to do instead of a second season of Haruhi already gets super high expectations from me D=). I don’t know if it’s as good as I expected… on one hand I’m no fan of these Key games turned anime, on the other, I was expecting the next Suzumiya Haruhi (which is totally ridiculous for me to expect…but still). So mixed feelings here. Fuuko arc, although kinda long, was hilarious and probably my favorite. My least favorite? The Kotomi arc. The good thing is that she was reduced to a mere side character after her arc =) The random Fuuko appearances were actually kinda annoying (though I heard that’s actually what happens in the game ~_~; so… meh). And the Nagisa ending was probably not what I would of liked… but exactly what I expected. Needs more Tomoyo and Kyou. No seriously. Overall, Clannad was very enjoyable though it did kinda drop off a bit in the middle (I blame Kotomi >.<). And what ever happened to the electrician they meet early on (during Fuuko’s arc I think)? They kinda sapend some time to introduce him and we never see him again? Well apparently he’s suppsoed to be Fuuko’s sister’s fiancee ~_~; Funniest moment : too many to choose from, but “Lets wear matching boxers and run down the road to school” is up there along with those Fuuko hallucinations, and the straw up the nose act. Needs more Tomoyo. Needs more Kyou.

eww Nagisa ending. I’d of gone with Tomoyo or Kyou =/

Dozo! have a starfish!

Shakugan no Shana II

I had just watched the first season a few weeks before the second season started airing and so I was expecting something good off the bat since the end of season 1 left me with a pretty good impression. LOL how wrong was I. We get about 6 eps of weak harem-comedy and a few episodes of Shana no Yuutsu. High quality stuff, as expected from J.C. Staff kept me watching though and it did pick up midway thru. Caramel & Shana vs Sabrac was a great fight (though don’t put too much thought into why Yuuji can figure out his weakness in mere minutes while Caramel and Pheles hasn’t figured it out after how many years?). The last battle was somewhat … bleh.. they didn’t even try to explain why Hecate stopped ~_~; At least Yuuji finally made a choice (this gets +1 just because of that). Funniest moment was when Shana asked where babies came from. Yes yes.. its a old joke.. but given the circumstances.. it was quite funny.

Bamboo Blade

Like Square Enix’s Nagasarete Ariantou, Bomboo Blade was just mediocre, but at least it was different. I wasn’t going to watch this originally, but boredom got the best of me. Bi-polar bitch MiyaMyia and acorn man Dan-kun duo were definitely my favorites of the series. Nothing especially good stands out, but nothing really bad to complain about either. Funniest moment: the American woman and Dan-kun with their Engrish. Yeah, I know it’s not supposed to be funny -_-; Bambloo Blade gets an average score for being so average.

Bi-polar Miya Miya FTW! Rin is also cool tho.

Spice and Wolf

Anime and a wolf goddess, Horo, and a merchant name Lawrence. Had potential… I mean a quasi-fantasy anime about economics, trade, and peddling… high production values… and well animated. I had high expectations and Spice and Wolf just didn’t deliver. The story is somewhat confusing (lol its not a good thing when an anime about peddling is confusing) and weak at times. And at the end of the 12 episodes (well 11 episodes since episode 7 is a DVD special what doesn’t have to do with the main plot), we are pretty much left off in the same place we find ourselves back in episode 3 or 4. At least Horo and Lawrence had good chemistry.

KimiKiss ~ Pure Rogue

I bet she watched Kimikess

After the first two episodes I had a pretty good feeling about this and like Spice and Wolf, it really disappointed me. Sure we get a cute caste of harem, and it isn;t really the typical harem set-up as we have 3 male main/side characters. Oh course my favorite male character, Akira, got no lovin’ from JC Staff. What pissed me off the most was not how Yuumi got the short end of the stick, but it was how an episode would end with something amazing then it would get completely ignored, it like it never happened the very next episode. It got to a point where I had to stop watching for a few weeks only to marathon it at the end. Btw, its really incestuous when you say “I love you Mao-nessan” ~_~; Oh and the whole frog doll thing? I wanna strangle them… ~_~; Kimi-Kiss’ saving grace is the half decent animation,tsun tsun Erika and super shy Yuumi. KimiKiss is diet coke level stuff >.<

Kimi-Kiss ~ Pure Crap also wins the facepalm 2007 award

Dear Kotomi,
Hinano was right, you suck. And put some shoes on.

- Regards
Your local coke machine.

This was probably the least stellar episode of Clannad so far… but wasn’t bad. Nothing really stood out, that’s all. I guess we all still need time to recover from Fuuko and her ninja stars starfish of doom. Starfishes? (Whats the plural of Starfish? Starfish? bah!)

Without further ado, Clannad Ep 9 10 summarized in a 4-koma!

Edit: For some really strange reason I thought this was episode 09 ~_~;;; bah I must be tired.

That’s right, even Nagisa can use the Sh****gan.

Ok so this topic has been beaten to death by a rusty hammer. What I can summarize from all the blog posts and all the comments: nothing important was left out. (If you want REAL comparisons all the sites linked above have pretty screencaps showing the difference, the world doesn’t need more).

My personal thoughts? The fact that now I KNOW half the character’s faces are cut off because they can’t fit them in bothers me when I watch it in SD =( That and WS just feels… more spacious… just like how CLANNAD should be. I’ll probably continue to watch the SD first but since CLANNAD is so enjoyable, I’ll probably re-watch in HD as well.

Number 10 : Naruto Eps 31-32

Yeah, even though I’ve seen it twice now, its still funny… can’t wait till Sai shows up next week =D

Number 9 : Hayate Eps 29-30

Butler fights make me lol

Number 8 : Hayate Ep 29

Animal cruelty is not funny, but random animal S&M violence is!

Number 7 : Shakugan no Shana Second Ep 03

rofl

Number 6 : Clannad Ep 04

Tomoya: Why are Tomoyo and Youhei getting more screen time than me?!
Youhei: Cause I have the hots for Tomoyo
Tomoyo: … all you need to do is give your good friend an asskicking and you’ll get loads of screen time, like me

“CHAINNNNN COMBO!”

Number 5 : Minami-Ke Ep 02

Chiaki: Shut up, fool
Makoto: I’m no fool! I’m the idiotic child!

Number 4 : Clannad Ep 04

The whole “Tech me how to talk to the hot girl that I think is a guy” scene made me lol.
But the bowling one was especially funny.

Number 3 : Minami Ke Ep 02

lol @ Ayako sub
“This is a story about hot yuri sex between three entirely blood-unrelated sisters … you wish. Get your fapping materials elsewhere. Also, worship my teardrop mouth and my leaf-shaped ahoge, or I’ll whip you good.”

Number 2 : Naruto Ep 32

lolololol… wtf

Number 1 : Clannad Ep 04

LOL I don;t understand why he had the sudden urge to stick a straw up her nose!!!!! (I sure hope he doesn’t drink that juicebox later)

I can’t wait any longer for the Clannad OP/ED songs by eufonius to be realeased =( According to CDJapan, it wont be out until Nov 21, but according to #Nipponsei, it says October 26th! Who to believe!?

Well for now, this awesome remix will keep me happy… I just need a way to rip this into an .mp3 T_T;

I can easily say that I was not a big fan of KyoAni/Key’s 2 previous game-turned-anime attempts. It really annoyed me how their mouths were always so close to their noses! Yet I had to see what all the hype surrounding Clannad was about (that and I needed a rebound anime after Gurren Lagann).

The OP was just amazing … the art was amazing … Clannad was amazing. And since I’ve never played the game and I don’t know what the story is even about, it is probably harder to disappoint me. For someone who didn’t actually care that much for Clannad to begin with, the first episode kept me interested … at least for now =)

Key points:

• (+) Their mouths are ok =D
• (+) Storyline was pretty fast paced … well faster than I expected…
• (+) Animation was nice! Damn the aspect ratio =(
• (-) Some of the transitions are kinda choppy… and it reminded me of a MS Powerpoint presentation at times >.<
• ( ) The end was slightly strange… not necessarily a bad thing and I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it!

Oh and “Okazaki Ginga” made me chuckle.