It's been a while. [plus tiny rant]

Well, I apologise for my long diparture from this blog. It honestly has been quite a while, I know.
So, I am a big fan of shoujo manga, and thus turn to Shoujo Beat for different series to read. There are very good series under the name such as Godchild or Ouran High School Host Club. I have noticed, however, that as time goes by, more and more series are being licences by Viz (under Shoujo Beat), in very small periods of time.
This, in my opinion, is rediculous. There are at least 40 different series in the SB line, most of which only have 1 volume out as of now. It's like a manga collector that grabs volume 1's, never continues, and thus has a collection composed only of that.
This process slows down the releases of many series - the series that are actually popular.
Take Ouran High School Host Club, for instance. A very popular series that many shoujo fans like. The last volume was released in Febuary 2008 (volume 10). The next volume is due to be released in November. That is almost an entire year.
And while these series are being released at very slow paces, tons of other volume 1's are coming out.
Shoujo Beat - take a break! Calm down! Take the time to complete your series and then license again. This is crazy! We fans would like volumes to be released once every 4 months or so, at least. Not once a year!

Hopefully changes will be made eventually. Honestly, licensing companies should be COMPANIES, not badly organized manga collectors.

RANT: Of Course It's Not Popular; You're Not Advertising!

So yes, this blog has indeed been dead since August, but I'm going to pick it up and try again. For this entry, I am going to rant. My rant shall be about American anime companies' attitudes about the series they're selling and why it's completely stupid the way they're expecting it to work. It's probably something you've heard already, but I still feel like saying it.

As I'm sure everyone is well aware of, Naruto and Bleach are extremely popular. These series are ones that almost every anime fan has seen or read at least some of, so naturally they are big sellers for Viz, one of the industry's big name companies. Because of that, Viz naturally markets the hell out of those two titles. Also, they constantly talk about wanting to find "the next Naruto or Bleach". This is where the problem lies.

The reason why Naruto and Bleach are so incredibly popular is because everyone knows about them. They're on TV, they were extremely popular in Japan and online as fansubs and scanlations, and Viz advertises them everywhere. It has nothing to do with the two series' quality.

The problem is that the anime and manga companies expect "the next Naruto or Bleach" to just knock on their door without them doing a thing. Honestly, they probably already have what could be their next big title licensed and being released right now, but because no one knows about it, no one's buying it. An example of this would be D. Grayman. It has a lot of what fans want, but it's just not marketed heavily, so no one knows it exists. The same goes for a lot of shonen titles, and Host Club could EASILY be "the next Fruits Basket", which is also searched for like the Holy Grail.

Even without a series being big enough to replace Naruto, Bleach, Fruits Basket, and the like, a lot of series don't do well at all when they really could, and it's usually because no one knows these series exist unless they watched the fansubs or read the scans, which is another problem, since those fans have already seen the title. ADV wonders why Princess Tutu was a flop for them. I think it's pretty obvious; unless someone sees it at the local Suncoast or Best Buy, they probably didn't know it existed. I'm a big fan of anime, especially somewhat obscure stuff, and I'd never heard of Princess Tutu at all until it was shown at my anime club. I never saw an ad for it anywhere, so that really didn't help. It's like ADV figured they could just put it out and do nothing and it would make back its cost in under a year, then when it flopped they just figured "Well, I guess no one wanted THAT show". Uh, no, maybe no one KNEW what it WAS?

I just find this completely ridiculous.

It's been a while...Kyo Kara Maoh vol. 1

I don't know why I bother, since no one reads these reviews, but I've returned to review volume one of my current favorite anime, Kyo Kara Maoh. Just for the record, I still haven't finished watching Fate/Stay Night or Card Captor Sakura, hence there not being any full-series reviews. Also, I have no idea where Pinkeh went. Around May she decided she was too cool for AIM (I miss youuuu.....), and hasn't been on Gaia since mid-July. In short, I have no idea if she's coming back or not.

...on to the review!

Disc one of Kyo Kara Maoh contains the first 5 episodes. I've seen the entire first season, so containing myself may be difficult. The story opens with a pregnant woman sharing a taxi cab with a stranger. The man tells her that, in the far-away land he comes from, the month of July, which is when this takes place, is called "Yuuri". This somehow clicked with the woman, and when her son was born, she named him Yuuri.

Fast-foreward 15 years later. Yuuri Shibuya is an ordinary Japanese boy, just going into high school. He loves baseball and hanging out with friends. Perfectly normal...until one moment of indecisiveness throws all rules out the window. Yuuri witnesses his friend, Ken Murata, being mugged. While trying to decide whether he should help the other boy or not, Ken sees him, so he feels obligated to help. Ken runs off to call the cops, and Yuuri is left to deal with the punks. They drag him into the womens' restroom and give him a swirlie...which causes him to be flushed down the toilet. That's right. Flushed. down. the. toilet. This was one of the funniest scenes ever.

When he wakes up, he is in a strange location similar to the Alps. No one can understand him...until a strange guy squeezes his head. Then everyone can understand him and vice versa. Another man appears on a horse and rescues him from the first guy, who seems to want to take him and trade him for money. The new man, Conrad Weller, takes him to a small cottage where he is met by Lord Gunter von Christ, an aristocrat. Gunter informs Yuuri that he is their king...the demon king!

After a bit of persuasion, Yuuri agrees to accept the task. He's taken to his castle where he is scoffed at by Lord Gwendal von Voltaire, another aristocrat, and accidentally proposes to Lord Wolfram von Bielefelt, yet another aristocrat, then accepts a challenge to a duel. During the duel against his new fiance, he displays unusual powers that prove he is indeed the Demon King, but he doesn't remember doing it. The disc ends with Yuuri, Conrad, and Wolfram leaving by boat to look for a special sword, the Demon Sword; Morgif.

It may sound highly generic (except the toilet flushing), but Kyo Kara Maoh is an exceptional story. The characters are all highly diverse, interesting people, and a bit quirky at that. I can watch this first disc over and over and never get bored. I would recommend this to any fantasy/action/comedy fans that don't mind a bit of male/male hinting.

Woo!:
-Art: 5/5
-Plot: 4/5 (for semi-generic-ness)
-Characters: 5/5
-General Appeal: 4/5 (simply because not everyone can handle the slashiness)
-nitpicky stuff: 4/5 (some of the music is annoying)
-Overall: 4.5

Game Review- Okami!

"Okami"-Japanese word for 'wolf'. And that's just exactly what you are in this RPG (?) by Clover. I beleive it's rather new in North America, about a year old. I bought it a few months ago, and it took me a month and five days to beat it. And wow, was that a fun month and five days.
Enter Nippon, the country in which you will be playing. 100 years ago, a dragon named Orochi lived, demanding female sacrifices and spreading evil all though the land. Everyone despaired, until Nagi was born. Nagi sought to kill Orochi, and when he thought all hope was lost during battle, a wolf came as if from the heavens. Shiranui- the sun god. Shiranui helped Nagi defeat Orochi but was killed in the process. For the time, peace had returned to Nippon. But now- 100 years later, a decendant of Nagi released the sword that was keeping the evil at bay. Now Orochi is back, and he means buisness. But then, the statue that was built in the form of Shiranui came alive. And this is you. Ameterasu- Shinarui reborn! And who is that little flea who says he's an artist? Issun! As the wolf Ammy, you and Issun must travel Nippon, reviving the cursed lands while learning all 13 Celestial Brush techniques.
Now, I thought Okami was very fun and original. My three favourite parts about this game are the painting, the graphics and the music. I'll break it all down.
Painting. You are a sun god, and you have (or, 100 years ago, 'had') 13 Celestial brush techniques. You must get them back, and slowly but surly you will become more powerful as the game progresses. You can paint bombs to kill your ennemies, or slash them with a line of paint to cut them. There's also techniques to make it day or night, to slow down time, and to control various elements. I found this very interesting, using paint to fight! You also have various weapons that float on your pretty wolf back which you can use only in battle (you can use the paint whenever you want).
Second, the graphics in this game are BEAUTIFUL. It's basically one big moving Japanese watercolour, which is another reason that makes this game so unique. Half the time I didn't want to do my missions, I only wanted to stare at the beautiful landscape around me.
And last, the music. Okami has tons of music and each peice is really fun. There's a theme for practically every character (I love Issun's theme). It's all just so pretty to listen to. Like with the graphics, I could just stand in one place listening to the music playing in my mission.
Okami is also very fun to play because there's lots of emotion in it. Whether it's Issun and his crude humor or something serious like having to part with a character, it's all so..sucking-you-in-ish. If you know what I mean.
Okami was TOTALLY worth the 30$ I payed for it and I would recommend it to any RPG fan or anyone that generally really likes games. I find it hard to see anyone hating this game.
[Oh, and Waka is my favourite character. Look out for him. 8D]

Story: 4/5
Graphics: 5/5
Music: 4/5
Side quests: 1/5 (because there's like, none. -Emo sob.-)

Trinity Blood Anime Review

I really had to restrain myself from reviewing anything to do with Kingdom Hearts, which I am obssesing over. Trust me, it's for Mary's health and mine. .___.

Anyway, enter Trinity Blood, a recent enough anime licensed by Funimation. 4 DVDs are out so far, and here I shall review the first one, or, the first 4 episodes.

Trinity Blood is about a world inhabited by humans and vampires. Years ago, they waged a war, and are still hostile amongst eachother. Now, enter Abel Nightroad, a traviling preist. He seems innocent enough, but who is he really? By episode 1 (which involves s hot air balloon and a vampire attack), we find out Abel is a Crusnik, a vampire that drinks the blood of other vampires. Sounds pretty scary, hm?

Some (or, many) things confused me with Trinity Blood, unfortunatly. Mabye I wasn't paying enough attention? Well. The whole vampire-human war left me confused, not exactly knowing what was going on. In every episode, Abel is somewhere else and ends up in some sort of vampire-or-other-paranormal issue. The fights are interesting enough, but I'm always wondering what he was doing in the first place. Why is he at this certain place? Meh. I may just be stupid.

The art is pretty good, though. Clean and fresh, you could say? And the music is nice too. I rather like the ending song, "Broken Wings".

All in all, I will continue to buy the Trinity Blood DVDs, but I must have some rewatching to do to catch all those confusing parts I misunderstood.

Ah, and I watched the sub, in case anyone was wondering, so I cannot review the dub here. :]

Ratings:
Art 3/5
Story 3/5
Music 4/5
Other random things 4/5

Fate/Stay Night volume 1

I'm back and reviewing the first volume of Fate/Stay Night~!

A lot of information is established in volume one of Fate/Stay Night. We learn that every so often a war is fought between 7 mages (masters) and 7 spirits (servants). The last one of these was 10 years ago, but the war was called off after a disaster occurred. Now, another one is beginning to take place.

Shiro Emiya is just an ordinary teenage kid, except that he is obsessed with doing the right thing and helping people. Also, he has faint magical powers, mostly the ability to fix things. One day, when he finishes staying after school to clean a dojo (wow he's a do-gooder D=), he inadvertantly witnesses a fight taking place between two servants, Lancer and Archer to be exact. (Servants never reveal their true identities to anyone except possibly their master. It helps them to keep their strategies in fights less obvious). Lancer nearly kills him, but he is granted a 2nd chance. Though Lancer hunts him down, he manages to save himself by accidentally summoning a servant.

The servant he called was Saber, a young woman with a whole lot of fight in her. After fighting Lancer off, Saber and Shiro talk. That leads them nowhere. Rin, a girl in Shiro's class and a magus, shows up with Archer, her servant, and takes Shiro and Saber to Rin's mentor and the overseer of the Holy Wars so that he can explain the whole deal to Shiro. Shiro accepts his position as a master.

~ and that's all I'm giving on the plot. Here's my responses:

Wow. Just wow. The art is freaking gorgeous, the fights are exciting and fun to watch, the music is pretty (note to self: get this soundtrack), and Archer is eye candy. Put short, This is going to be one hell of a ride that I won't miss! I have seen this series referred to as a grown up version of Pokemon, and I agree for the most part. It's fun to put together different battle ideas and such. I also enjoy finding out who the servants are. My only complaints are that Shiro and his friend, Sakura are way too bland for my liking. And Sakura's dub voice needs to die.

In the enddddd~
-Art: 5/5
-Plot:4/5
-characters:3/5
-general appeal:5/5
-nitpicky stuff (now including music!): 4/5
-Overall: 4.5

Death Note Anime : 1st review by Pinkeh

Hello, Pinkeh here. I'm new to the blog, and will now be reviewing along with Mary. My first review will be the Death Note anime. My reviewing skills and pattern will be a bit different than Mary's, but yeah. Let's begin.

Death Note begins with Yagami Light (or Raito), a very intelligent 17-year old, who is bored out of his mind. And just as it happens, he discovers The Death Note, a notebook of death. Whoever's name you write in the note will die. (There are tons of other details and rules about how the note works, but you'll find that out as the story goes along). Light decides to use to note to kill all criminals and cleanse the world. The police, the NPA, FBI and so on, eventually notice all the killings as not quite a coincidence. Thus imerges L (and my ultimate fandom). L is an amazing detective who has solves many difficult cases before. And thus begins the chase, justice vs. evil.

Now, I really like Death Note. I had read the manga before the anime came out, so I had the chance to compare the two while watching the anime. The anime is very loyal to the manga (well, so far) with the exeption of a few add-on scenes which are pretty cute. The only major difference is the art, but of course the art in the anime always is different from the manga art. I find they gave L huge eyes, and Misa's face is screwed up. But the voices are perfect, so points to Japan for that.

Death Note is just a great manga/anime, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Go pick up the manga sometime! Viz has licensed the anime, so please wait patiently 'till it comes out.

Art (anime) 3/5
Story 5/5
Overall 4/5