I’m not very good at doing this once per week, am I? Once again, I’ve been pretty busy with my thesis so I’ve not had much time for fansubs. Busy adult and all that.
‘Not much time’ of course means that I did actually manage to get some watching done. For starters, the first two episodes of Ichigo Mashimaro have been subbed by the RH crew, much like Kamichu. I must say, I’m really starting to like softsubs. Also, their original release of episode two introduced me to the h264 codec - better quality than the 140mb XviD raw that was released, and only 60mb. Clearly it’s pretty lossy, but you wouldn’t have known. That said, Ichigo Mashimaro isn’t exactly the most action-filled series, so not noticing the problems isn’t that surprising.
Episodes 11 and 12 of Basilisk are finally out. I watched 11 last night, and will watch 12 just after I finish writing this. I really dig Basilisk, it’s very much Ninja Scroll TV, done right. If you’re looking for a serious shounen action series that’s currently running, this would definately be worth your while.
Stratos 4 Advance episode 2 was another that I watched last night. Another enjoyable episode - I really can’t help but enjoy Stratos 4. Something about the simple approach they’ve taken with it is very appealing, and the fact that I can nerd out over the aircraft and stuff is a bonus. Yes, there’s high-altitude antics this time. I’ll probably write about this in more depth later.
There’s a trailer floating around for Banner of the Stars III at the moment. Looks very good. Of course, it’s Banner of the Stars so it being good is pretty much a guarantee. No word yet how long it is - two DVD releases, so I’d guess it’ll be two large episodes, but a lot of people have been saying it’s 3 normal-length episodes per disc. That doesn’t seem right to me though, because Japanese like to rip each other off with expensive OAV DVDs that have only one episode per disc.
Da Capo Second Season episode 3 wasn’t very good. I really hope that the promise it showed in the first two episodes wasn’t just a glitch. Needs more Kotori. In other stupid harem anime, Froth-bite have done the first few episodes of Shuffle!. This one is just as mediocre as I expected, but I’ll probably continue to watch it because Primula is a carbon-copy of Presea from Tales of Symphonia <3.
Froth-bite also finally got the next two Mahoraba episodes out. This series was a real surprise, turned out to be a hell of a lot better than it had any right to be. 21 and 22 explored Sayoko and Asami’s background, which was interesting and very heartful :P. I’m hoping the last four episodes aren’t too long in coming.
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid was just as good in episode 2 as it was in episode 1. This time, instead of being mecha-based and serious, they managed to get a perfect split. Half of the episode centered around the token villain for the series, along with his hot chinese assassin twins, who may or may not be engaging in the time-honoured art of twincest. I’m hoping for more of that. Meanwhile, the other half of the episode involved Sousuke / Chidori antics a la Fumoffu, which is most definately not a bad thing. So far it looks like the decision to take the FMP franchise out of Gonzo’s hands has looked to be an extremely good one - the fumoffu team can do serious stuff just as well as they can side-splitting comedy.
Gundam Seed Destiny ep 40 was pretty disappointing. I think they’ve basically given up and stopped trying now. This series has turned into utter dogshit, we’re now getting solid gold quasi-Gundams which have just been lying around in convenient locations, and just happen to be on a similar tech level to the latest suits, which are two years more recent. Seriously, what is this shit the writing team are smoking? Seed was just as blatant at its merchandising, but this has gone beyond blatant merchandising. We’re basically getting 30-minute toy commercials now. I’m still going to watch it until the end, but I fully expect it to suck hard.
And the thing with SEED was, even for being a blatant toy ad, it still pulled together a decent enough story. In fact, in that manner, it just followed the same formula every Gundam series since the original had done. Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta, X, 08th MS, all of them were blatant toy whores primarily—I mean really, 3-4 new main frontline units and dozens of token, needless special customs, prototypes, & mobile armors in a YEAR just isn’t possible—but they also had good writers at the helm to form a good story. Destiny just took out the story element…or fucked it over into nonexistence, to be more specific.