I’m supposed to be on holidays at the moment, though what that really means is I’m meant to work on my honours thesis project. Anyway, I should probably have been blogging more, but I haven’t been up to much worth talking about on the anime front.
Recently finished watching Inuyasha. Felt kind of ripped off at the way they ‘concluded’ it - it feels like they would have resolved everything with another 10-15 episodes, but just decided to stop dead.
Also watched the first three movies. First movie was reasonable, though flawed. Second felt like a really cool ‘what if…’ kind of thing until they decided to pull a ‘ha ha we were just fucking with you’ moment and return the state of things right back to where it started. Third movie was really cool, because of the focus on Sesshomaru who is by far the most interesting and complex character in the series.
Also caught up to the Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (or “UFO Boobs” as the RH crew like to call it) subs. This is a reasonably interesting OAV, it turns out. I’m not sure what they were up to with episode 3 though - either the DVD rip was terrible, or they’d added a horrible blur filter over a lot of the shots which made my eyes hurt focusing on it. Anyway, gets a thumbs up from me, hope to see more.
Futakoi Alternative ep 8 released about 24 hours ago, and I just watched that as well. Fantastic series, should be on everyone’s watch list. They finally revealed what has been going on with Sara and Soujuu all this time. I also saw some potential trace frames. I haven’t done much tracing recently, so that’ll be good. Again, not going to talk about it in depth - other blogs have been there weeks ago, with the raws.
Gundam Seed Destiny ep 38 screened last night with a new OP and ED. Whoever it is at Sunrise who approved the new OP needs to be SHOT. This has to be the worst piece of music ever to be used in a Gundam series. It’d be fine if we were watching some shitty high school drama or harem show or something, but for a Gundam series it’s incredibly inappropriate. What bites even more is that the performers know this, and couldn’t care less - their attitude is basically “fuck Gundam, we do whatever we feel like”. This is yet another example of Sony Music using the series as a vehicle for pushing their new ‘talent’ without considering whether said ‘talent’ is actually going to fit the mould. There are so many artists which would have had no problems at all making a rockin’ Gundam OP. Some names that come to mind include Angela and Savage Genius… they’ve had Yuki Kajiura on deck for several things already, including the current ED, so I don’t see why we couldn’t have an incredible FictionJunction piece. Hell, even another simpering T.M. Revolution dogpile would be better. Incidentally, I’m also really hating their decision to pair Lunamaria with Shinn. It feels like they’re being forced together because they’re free, not because their relationship makes any logical sense. Oh Fukuda, you card.
I also recieved all of Hajime no Ippo from a friend last week. Absolutely awesome series, already 27 episodes in and loving every minute.
In closing… some new images from Type-Moon’s new Fate game, Fate / Hollow Ataraxia, have surfaced, including this rider-esque girl who fans are speculating may be related to Rider.
The new OP does suck for the most part. It’s acappella music but not. At least, the new ED is good with the return of See-Saw in the mix. The whole Lunamaria and Shinn relationship is definitely f’d-up. She should be angry at Shinn for “killing” them but instead, she cries on him.