Mahou Meido Meganekko

In the comments here is a completely unsubstaniated bit of info that R+V will have a second season. (Warning: Episode 9 spoilers).

After watching episode 8, I considered it highly likely. They are still following the manga, but some of them are filler episodes, with no hint that they are in a hurry to get to the main antagonists shown in the ED. Episode 9, for those of you who have read the manga Show ▼

Chapters 18 and 19 were rolled together into episode 7, which shorted Mizore a bit. Episode 8 was about Ririko-sensei. If 9 and 10 are a two-parter, then theoretically, that could leave 11-13 for the build-up and showdown with the main antagonists. That’s possible. If Rubi’s plot is a 3 parter, then we’re pretty much assured a second half-season.

Chapters 8, 9, and 10 of the manga involve the “Public Safety Commission” and IMHO, the manga-ka failed to deal with most of the members. It’s going to be hard to pack all three chapters into only two episodes; three is pushing it, especially if they fix his error.

On the other hand, if this is a 26- episode series, the pacing will definitely stagger somewhat, unless the PSC conflict is dragged out through about episode 15. Of course, it could be an odd number like 22, or 24. Well,those are even numbers, but you know what I mean.

One possibility is that they planned for 13 episodes, and the Witch Hill episodes would have been the end. But the series proved popular enough in Japan that they greenlighted the second half after four or five episodes were broadcast; hence the sudden change in OP and ED.

My only major complaint is how cheap the animation looks. They really need to up the budget a bit.

Pumpkin Scissors is a stupid name for both a show and a military unit, but it drew me in for a while with a mix of action, political intrigue, Central European flavor, and setting. The military technology of this alternate world has advanced to perhaps early WWII (top of the line tanks appear to have 75mm short-barreled guns), though I’ve seen no aircraft. The Empire and Republic didn’t really settle anything with their cease-fire and armistice three years ago, but the Empire is in ruins, and “war relief” in the ruined countryside is the mission of the Pumpkin Scissors unit. They are three (later four) soldiers, led by the noble (and naive) Lt. Alice Malvin, who travel around the country doing everything from heading up the rebuilding of railroad tunnels to bringing bandits and renegade nobles to heel.

The character designs are unique; no bishie boys or pretty girls here, except perhaps for Alice, but she’s a fish out of water in the army. The artwork is strongly evocative of post-WWI Europe, in ruins. The tanks and cars are boxy designs that give off a distinctly central european flavor, strengthened by liberal use of German and Russian terms. It didn’t seem to be the usual animé series at all, and I followed it for a while when it came out in fansubs.

The problem was, that while the trappings were non-standard, the elements were cliché. Lt. Malvin was just too simple-minded and overzealous. Heir to a highly placed family, you can see that she’s too honest for the world she’s in. Her supportive boss is too world-weary and cynical, and I have to wonder why her staff isn’t speding time turning in transfer requests. Also, some of the stunts just too unbelieveable when matched up with the ultra-realistic style of the art and animation. What finally got me was the obvious “Evil Conspiricy of Nobles” faced by the main characters, contrasted to Alice’s utter naiveté, and the ignorance of the rest of her staff. Corporal Oland, I could see. He’s just a giant, but gentle country peasant — who was subjected to a horrible experiment the left him with nightmares and the ability to kill a tank with only an oversized pistol. The powers that conducted these experiments are still around — and don’t want to be found. Yet the Pumpkin Scissors unit barely pays lip service to the idea that, hey, someone official might not want them doing what they’re supposed to do.

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Given the nature of the show, one would expect the principals to start developing a healthy paranoia, but they don’t do that even after several people near them die in unusual circumstances. I finally gave up when they were driving their car around (in the sewers, no less) and chose to drive right up to a suited figure carrying a flamethrower. Ok, granted they were running from people that had just tried to kill them, but talk about going from the frying pan to the fire!

As I said, I followed it for 14 fansubbed episodes, but eventually I dropped it in annoyance. I bought the 1st DVD as an obligation purchase, but have never been tempted to break the seal. In the end, I think it was Alice that ruined it for me; she had no room for fear or doubt; she was little more than a wind-up toy determined to batter down any brick wall in front of her. I prefer heroines a little less psychotic, and a little more human.

Unless it’s a fun kind of psychotic, that is.

Well, after some fighting and a lot of people having trouble (well, two), some experimentation shows that the only person who can make spoiler tags with angle brackets work in comments is me. Guests can make them work only with square brackets. Why? I have no idea. Last night I replaced an xml registration file that had a security flaw, but it shouldn’t have had anything to do with comments. Maybe it retroactively altered the permissions everyone else has. Please feel free to try other formatting tags with angle brackets, and see what you can and cannot do. It may be that the more than just the plug-in that governs the [spoiler] tag was modified.

And now since this is a random post, I shall get on with being random.

I don’t have anything profound to say about the death of an industry, but it’s nice that it works for me, a bit. The local Hollywood Video is closing it’s doors, and I found out way too late to snag anything more than the dregs of animé. I passed on Reign and Initial D , but picked up Slayer’s Next (Movie), Cowboy Bebop (The Movie), Spriggan, Steamboy, and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence for just over $40 total, counting tax. Of those, Steamboy is an obligation buy, and Spriggan is a “why the hell did I get that?” buy. Slayers is a “enh, why not?” buy. More stuff to toss on the unwatched pile with Pumpkin Scissors, Haibaine Renmei, and the rest of Ikkitousen. Poor Haibaine, what bad company. Speaking of Pumpkin Scissors for a second, I dusted off an old half-finished article from when it was out on fansub and finished it up. Not particularly detailed; I wasn’t that crazy about it. It will appear in a couple of days.

Poking around on the internet last night, I discovered that Fate/Stay Night had an eroge as it’s origin. I almost would not have guessed that; I had a bit of a suspicion because of the harem elements. I figured dating sim though, not full blown hentai. it does explain that weird fanservice scene in the abandoned house. (Yes, the world really does need more Saber x Rin fanservice.) Apparently, there were only three major paths, and it seemed to be more a matter of who you chose to play as than the choices made (although one was the evil Shirou route.) They chose to follow the Saber route, with a nod to Rin’s, which is why she and Archer got featured so significantly. Show ▼

I’m not going to get into details, but I felt it ended the right way, and Show ▼

And now that I’ve mentioned The Show That Deserves No Mention, I might as well talk about it, I guess. After 14 episodes of pure dreck (or twelve, depending on your criteria) Shana finally got its ass in gear and started throwing down some serious action. Unfortunately, it not only happened too late, it happened too fast. The action in episode 15 managed to drag worse than a one-wheeled chariot, interspersed with segments where so many things happened so fast, I was left hanging worse than a one-wheeled chariot going airborne after hitting a pothole. Don’t ask me what chariots are doing running around on one wheel and hitting potholes, that’s how confused I was. Even after watching the episode three times, I needed the following episode just to explain what the hell I’d just watched. Upside: Yuiji’s finally gotten serious about training, and plans to leave town with Shana; finally not stringing Kazumi along any further. Downside: Shana’s mad at him for it. Argh. Just shoot me. There’s no way there’s any common sense left in this show. No way. None. (h/t to Jason for the meme.)

Then there’s KimiAru, a.k.a. They Are My Noble Masters. Last episode (6) we got what TV had to substitute for the sex-with-the-lolis scene from the game: Ren gets a kiss on the cheek from both Yume and Natose. Yay. This week (ep.7), what looks to be a lightweight episode involving Rie Tanaka’s character (Ageha) temporarily moving in with the Kuonji family suddenly turns emo in the end. Mihato has shown increasing jealousy as the various women vie for Ren’s attention, but when Ageha Show ▼

And one as echhi as the game, considering that Hato-nee is Ren’s older sister?

I’m a Shinra-sama partisan myself.

Sorry about the lack of screenshots in this post, but I have to run; at least one other post needs to be written tonight, this one political..

Sigh, this was supposed to be a comment (about Yumeria) over at Chizumatic, but it kinda got away from me. Once again, I prove that, no matter how silly an animé series is, hours of time can be devoted to analyzing it. Defiinitely time for the spoiler tags…

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As for one of the stranger bonds in the show, Show ▼

Then there’s those last two episodes, to which I had the same reaction. “Um, replay, please?” Actually, I liked it at the time, and still do. The battles were pretty boring and silly, so the plot twist of Show ▼

In the end, Show ▼

On the other hand there is one thing that creeps me out about it… Show ▼

And I accused Steven of over-thinking.

The final scene though, that was a groaner, and was very expected. Show ▼

There is one last open question, though: does “the old man next door” remember anything?

Ok, I take that back, I just thought of another, even if it belongs over at Derailed by Darry. Show ▼

I started writing this article last week, but then I got sidetracked and never got back to it. Meantime, events marched on, and now I need to write even more to update and fix it. However, I’ve decided to be a lazy bum and just throw it up here, because I don’t have time. Well, I could make some, but I’d feel guilty about it. So here it is, as is. If any pics are borked, I’ll fix ‘em tonight.

Edit: added some brief captions

A few days ago, SDB listed Yumeria as a series he’d never buy. Immediately, a discussion broke out over whether it is as bad as Steven thought. Almost everyone said “no!” So, Steven said, “well maybe I was a little harsh…” Naturally, everyone then said, “Oh no, it’s really kinda stupid and has a few ‘Ewwww!’ scenes to it!”

Poor guy’s probably feeling whipsawed about now, but the comment that surprised me was Toren’s “the fanservice is kind of minimal.” Well, yeah, compared to Rosario + Vampire, maybe. So I loaded it up, and since I can’t watch R+V 5 tonight (lengthy DDOS attack on Baka-Wolf), I took some time out for screencaps (below the fold).

(more…)

By George, I may have called it, if seeing the obvious can be used to ego-stroke oneself.

Just spotted over at AoDVD:

Bandai Visual Gears Up (03:08 PM EST): A new Boss Note at the Bandai Visual USA dot-anime site by company president Tatsunori Konno discusses some of the changes coming up for the company in total as the fiscal year ends and begins anew. Of interest, though without much on the ground detail, is this statement: “I discussed about our business strategy for this year and the next with others in the Namco-Bandai group; our final consensus is that we will present new anime shows simultaneously all over the world.”

And in other news, we’re still waiting to hear a formal announcement of ADV’s demise. It’s been two weeks now…

Edit: and then I went back and read the next paragraph about Clannad’s Claymore’s (arg! Thanks. Andrew) license:

The anime release has no information as of yet but if FUNimation keeps true to what Gen Fukunaga has said in his recent Anime Today podcast, we’ll see this either in sets or in download to own form within the near future as they try to minimize the release windows.

Of course DL to own still means DRM, but it’s better than nothing.

Edit 2: Come to think of it, that explains the price points on True Tears and Shigofumi. Instead of lowering Japanese prices to a reasonable level, they’re jacking up ours to match, and prevent reverse importation.

Word was just let slip today that Media Blasters has licensed Night Head Genesis. That’s especially significant, because the internet domain had been registered (though not developed) by ADVFilms. This would appear to indicate that either ADV is selling off rights to its licensed properties to raise cash, or those rights have been revoked by the seller, who is then offering them to other companies. Either way, it’s been almost two weeks since the Great Disappearance, and no new word has been seen from ADV since John advised us to adopt a holding pattern and wait.

In related news, check this article out from ICv2.

According to the ICv2 Guide #51: Anime/Manga, sales of anime DVDs in North America tumbled by more than 20% during 2007. The number of anime releases in the North American market also continued to fall, dropping another 21% after a 19% decline in 2006. ICv2 estimates the size of the North American anime market at $275-300 million (in retail dollars).

The discussions at AoDVD were surprisingly mature, at least for the first page or so, and made for some intelligent commentary. Haven’t got time to excerpt it, but if you want to look it over or participate, it’s here.

Prior articles.

UPDATE: I’m going to have to retract that statement that they owned the registration. The original tip was from a forum poster at AoDVD, but it was definitely not enough to go on. I did a little hunting before posting the story. I thought I had finally dug up a story on ADV registering the domain, but of course, I didn’t link it and now I can’t find it to save my life. It was definitely on ANN, and I dug 5 or 6 pages deep into search results.

Baka. The story only said that ADV had registered the domain. I am wondering now if I somehow got the news story about the Japanese website confused.

Without an independent confirmation of ADV owning the site, I’m retracting that story.

Update2: It’s looking more and more like I did confuse myself with the story about the Japanese language website by thinking it was English. One idiot posting in a forum is not a source, it’s just an idiot. Sorry for the waste of time; I’m going back to waiting like everyone else.

Although I should note that after a run of decent series, I’ve bought almost nothing from ADV through most of 2007. They just haven’t been licensing stuff I wanted to see.