The drama of Winter Sonata was pretty popular and as I’m not a fan of live-action, I decided that I would wait untill there’d be an anime adaptation or so.

Winter Sonata, eh. I have to get used that it’s actually Korean spoken, but it’s still an anime. It starts with a  male looking at a photo and remembers about the girl in the picture named Yujin. A lot is fuzzy to me right now and that’s not only because it’s Korean, but more because of the story and told flashbacks… The animation is very, very nice. Yujin is too late for school so she has to kneel and keep repeating that she’s late.Yujin is interested in the boy who was with her in the same bus, who’s named Kang Joonsang. A classmate of Yujin says that she wants him and that they shouldn’t even stare at him. A boy who’s in the same class as they are says something that the two could actually be compatible. Joonsang ends up at the broadcast club, only reading a book. The sound isn’t working, so they ask if he can do something about it. Instead of putting a loose cable into the equipment, he pulls all of the cables out. Yujin goes into town, but ends up being troubled by a weird guy. Joonsang tries to rescue her, but the guy puts on a fight. All three of them end up at the police office. They get released and head outside. Joonsang meets up with his mother at home. Something about his mother giving a performance and who’s actually his father. Joonsang goes to university while he is an high school student and he solves what seems to be an almost impossible problem. All because he wanted to see Yujin, probably. Somehow the voice actress for Yujin doesn’t seem to fit. Way too old or something like it. It reminds me of Winter Album… That’s all I could make from this episode.

Next up, Yumeiro Patissiere! It would be boring if I didn’t have some new anime to discuss, so I also decided to start watching Yumeiro Patissiere.

We don’t get to see the face of Ichigo before the opening and in the opening she looks like… a regular girl. She needs to get ready to head out, but falls off the stairs. She tells a bit about herself. Ichigo’s sister is performing on the piano on a contest, but she’s very and very nervous. Ichigo shouts some weird things and Natsume is able to play. She wins in the end. Ichigo’s eyes get teary and she remembers the past: her grandmother offering her a cake when she’s sad. She eats it with joy. Ever since she ate the sweets that her grandmother made she likes them and enters a sweets event. She wants to pay the sweets, but she forgot her wallet, so she can’t pay them. Fortunately, her parents show up. She even increases the amount of sweets… to an amount of 12500 yen. Natsume thanks Ichigo for cheering her up. She eats a cake that seems to taste somewhat like that of her grandmothers. .She looks around where she got it from and ends up at a blond male called Lucas. Seems that he thinks that her grandmother attended the same school as he did in the past. She was one of the best. Lucas makes a cake especially for Ichigo and gets overwhelmed by the taste, almost of it were the feelings of first love. That’s exactly what it’s called: First Love. Lucas suggest that she comes to St. Marie Academy. Ichigo remembers that she wanted to be a patissiere in the past. She wants to enroll to St. Marie, troubling her parents even more. I have to say that her father is pretty funny. Her father keeps objecting, but so does Ichigo. She wants to transfer, no matter what. Her mother grabs a club that was under her father’s bed despite the fact that he can’t golf, so she’s allowed to enter.

It’s nothing really special. If it goes on like this, I think it’d be fine, but it seems there are going to be … sweet fairies. Would have loved to stee it realistic, but not I guess.

I couldn’t find torrents to watch Miracle Train, so I actually had to look for… stream videos. Fortunately, those videos are a lot better than they used to be in the past, so I’ll manage.

So, Miracle Train. What is it about? Tokyo train stations are personified by bishounen with a like-wise name (to the station, ofcourse). There is a train that only appears to lost ladies. Better said: a typical damsel in distress plot.

Ms. Girlie checks in to the Miracle Train and her dogs runs into the train as soon as the doors open. She notices that the train is empty and spots a dog. She talks to the dog and bishounen show up one by one in the train. Some of them are introduced and goodies, even the conductor shows up to introduce himself. Just wondering: who’s driving the train now? A girl dressed in pink named Akari shows up. She is the guide and Ms. Girlie is called Chinatsu. Akari suggests to start the introductions and she wants to introduce Roppongi, but a bishie claims that the leader should be introduced first. They solve it with jan-ken-pon. I won’t be able to recall all their names… When all of them are introduced, except for the leader, they find him in a corner, being gloomy. Roppongi says in Engrish ‘Don’t mind’ and mr. Leader shows up. Chinatsu is troubled by the fact that her dog is gone and Leader-san answers that dogs in the Oedo-line should be transported in a pet carrier. He summarizes everything that could be in a pet carrier that’s free to transport, even fish. Tsukishima (river-guy) shows up with a fishing rod with a goby on it. They finally want to start the search. Chinatsu tells them that her dog could even die if they don’t find him soon. Seems that she was on her way to the vet, because her dog keeps losing energy. Seems that she wouldn’t have got in troubles if she didn’t got invited to the Miracle Train, so the bishies start making puns. Trouble Train. Even the mascot dog isn’t in a carrier. They leave the train and start their search for the dog on Roppongi station. Seems he’s not there, so they go to Shinjuku station. They fear that he’s on the tracks and suddenly the train bumps. Just a rail switch. Chinatsu leaves the train with a bishie and in the mean time the bishie group thinks that something else must be troubling Chinatsu and it’s not her dog. Turns out that she’ll be lonely if her dog dies, because she just entered high school and all of her friends went to other schools. Really melodramatic music as background music. How come it’s so mysterious that Chinatsu can talk so freely with someone she just met? Because he’s a train station. That’s one weak statement…Roppongi and Leader-san find him on Roppongi’s station after all. In this episode Chinatsu got caught by Roppongi twice and he also caught… Shiodome. Probably fanservice.Chinatsu decides to start talking to her classmates.

So… It was pretty average. It’s educative in some way: the trivia that pops up about certain station, but that’s it. Perhaps it gets better, but I don’t think. One way to find out: watch more episode.

Good evening. For me, at least.

So, here I am and omigosh, I’m watching the first episode of Seitokai no Ichizon. Why? The idea of an VN player in the main cast being bishounen-like, with the rest of the council being female. So, what’s my plan? Try to ignore non-funny jokes and try to watch it for as long as I can. Here goes!

Hekiou Academy Student Council’s first step to world domination. Sounds good. If there should be anything that I like, it would be world domination. One pro. I already smell tons and tons of references in here, just by the first minute. I totally agree with ms. blonde-moe-styled that they should add another male character and not just the VN-player called Sugisaki Ken. Shorten Seitokai no Ichizon and you get the meaning survive.

References just before the opening:  DBZ, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, Lucky Star.

It’s not that the world is boring, but you. Sugisaki says that he knows his place as vice-president: the student council is his harem. Or so he thinks. Chibi-president rejects that idea. Next-up, smartass hotstuff secretary Chizuru. She sure is awesome as she kicks Sugisaki’s brains. Two bishoujo-characters enter the room: vice-president tomboy Minatsu and innocent afraid-of-male moe treasury Mafuyu. They’re sisters.

So, what happens in the rest of the episode? Endless talking in the same room, while Ken tries his VN-tactics on the council now and then and the girls making fun of him and not to forget, some parodies. Seems like Mafuyu is actually an gamer. They actually have an end-of-the-day pose.

References I got: Higurashi, Umineko, some action anime, Haruhi, I guess Clannad (Sunohara, Okazaki), Pokemon (color ball to capture monsters), K-on.
 
So, for an first episode? I guess it’s okay. There’s not really much going on, just talk-talk-talk. Animation… dunno. Not easy to decide. The seiyu are okay and there are some fitting OP and ED, not especially good or bad. Let’s just say that this is Lucky Star in a one-room setting and with a lead male character. I’ll continue watching this for now. I didn’t really expect that it would actually be funny, but it is. If you care for nonsense and a bit of fanservice, go watch this show.

Yes, I’m back! It’s been a while. Now I’m going to stay alive!

Let me give you a small overview of the anime that I’m watching this season, starting this month:
Kimi ni Todoke
Kobato
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza
Nyan Koi
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

Allow me to review the first episodes of these series! Warning for minor spoilers.

Kimi ni Todoke - Reaching you

I got the first volume of the manga a month ago and I couldn’t stop reading. Kimi ni Todoke is the cute story of Kuronuma Sawako, who is nicknamed Sadako. She looks like the girl from The Ring and that’s why nobody tried to talk to her. However, Sawako has a interest in one of the popular boys at school, Kazehaya. Obstacles need to be cleared and so does Sawako start to grow bit by bit.

So, there’s an event coming up and Sawako wants to join. Her classmates, Yano and Yoshino, think that it’s better if she’d play a ghost and Sawako wants to play the role. The two girls tell her that they would feel guilty if they’d let her play the ghost. Sawako still wants it and she apologises. For the fact that she can’t summon ghosts. Chizu and the other girl will keep it a secret, so she can still scare the hell out of her classmates. Night of the test of courage and Sawako is up to it. She’s dressed in a white dress and just by turning around she scares them. She feels as she’s finally useful and thus she feels happy. Then Kazehaya shows up and sticks with Sawako.Yano and Yoshino show up and bring her something to drink and Kazehaya notes that Sawako’s opening up. It’s time for the results of the the previous day and as Kazehaya lost, they decided that he should be dating Sawako for a whole week. He’s standing up for her and thinks it’s wrong for a joke. It’s time for the summer vacation to start. She bumps into Kazehaya when it’s summer vacation and he gives her a small presents of all her classmates, saying that all her classmates apologized. Kazehaya asks if it would be fine to also see her in the vacation.

The seiyu are quite fitting. Noto Mamiko as the shy girl, Namikawa Daisuku as the always friendly Kazehaya. Perhaps that makes it a bit plain. The story of a blooming love, or something like it. The animation… I don’t know what to say. A lot of patterns and perhaps a bit too much comedy-like deformed faces, but the colouring is really nice, so I guess it’s fine. The overall music section is fine as well. The opening is short and the ending isn’t my taste, but the background music is okay. If you need a true-love story or something like it, check this out.

Kobato

I always wanted to read the manga of Kobato. I wondered why I didn’t after watching the first episode of Kobato. I laughed, laughed and laughed and I was like ‘awww’.

Kobato is a cute girl who somewhat looks like an older Sakura. Anyhow, Kobato is new to our planet called Earth. She has an animal side-kick called Ioryogi in the shape of an pluche. Ioryogi isn’t really what you call sweet. He has a bad temper, criticizes and hits Kobato when she does something wrong, but he is good downstairs in his heart. If he has one. Back to Kobato. As she’s new to our world, Ioryogi is giving her a test: she has to act as a human for a whole day. If she’s able to do that, she passes and she can stay.

Naive as Kobato is, she joins some juvenile boys for some ‘fun’. Then Ioryogi warns Kobato that she shouldn’t be doing that and Ioryogi attacks the boys with fire. They can’t appreciate it and they want to hit Kobato, but then there’s a sudden hero who saves the day: Fujimoto. Just a quick appearance and he’s off. Kobato ends up at some kind of a festival and she meets an kind obaa-chan that has a baby that just won’t quit crying. The grandma says that his mother usually sings a song when he’s crying and isn’t really expecting that he’ll ever shut up, but Kobato decides to sing. Quite a nice song and that already for the first episode. Okay, it isn’t top notch, but it draws your attention. With this, Kobato earns some healed hearts, as that’s her goal: heal enough broken hearts to fill a bottle to grant her wish.

Kobato is fluffy, warm and funny. I don’t know if it’s either good or bad compared to the manga, but I like it. The art is nice, Fujimoto is cool (sorry, fangirlism), but the animation is a bit less. A bit blurry. Perhaps that will be solved with the DVD-releases. Sound: nice. The opening and ending are sung by Sakamoto Maaya and Nakajima Megumi, known to me for their performances in Macross Frontier. Hanazawa Kana does a fine job as the ditzy Kobato and the seiyu of Kurogane, Inada Tetsu, fits for Ioryogi.

Now that the Tsubasa manga has come to an end and soon also xxxHolic, perhaps now is the time for Kobato to make a break through with this anime. Or not. We’ll see.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza

Haruka still has to hide the fact that she’s an otaku and it doesn’t matter to Yuuto if what he has with Haruka isn’t rabu-rabu.

Don’t be surprised if you think that you downloaded the wrong episode. It’s just some show that Haruka is watching. When they’re in the classroom, Shiina starts a conversation about going on a trip. Haruka wants to join and ofcourse also the boys including Yuuto, so they go on their trip to a… well guessed, an onsen. They go by the Shinkansen and oh my, a complete new character is introduced! It seems that Haruka’s maids were secretly tagging along and they brought a new maid with them: Alice-chan. She’s a lolita and doesn’t speak much, but she sure can hit. I mean, hello, she has brass knuckles.

So, new character introduced. Second half: the onsen. Do not download any version that comes from Crunchyroll: they are over-censored. Really: half of the screen is freaking white. I wouldn’t call that animation anymore. Well, lots of stuff going on in the onsen. Yuuto actually goes in the womens bath, because he didn’t know that the baths switch. Shiina actually helps him hiding and what a surprise, seems that she’s falling for Yuuto as well. The other girls enter the bath and they want to know what kind of relationship Haruka has with Yuuto. Just before she tells the answer, Yuuto leaves the bath. They are visiting some town the next day and Yuuto manages to elope with Haruka to some event of the show that was shown in the beginning. Haruka grabs his hand and thanks him for making a nice memory.

So, nothing really new. The animation sucks and the voices are all moe-moe-moe. Not to mention the Crunchyroll-censoring. It should be a whole new word: CR-censor. It’s obviously that it will be Yuuto and Haruka together, so why should I even bother to watch the other episodes? I’ll give it one or two more episodes before I drop it.

Nyan Koi

A boy named Junpei likes Kaede, who in turn loves cats. Unfortunately for Junpei: he’s allergic to cats. Now that isn’t a real problem if you don’t have anything to do with cats. It’s just that Junpei can understand cats after a small accident and he now has to complete 100 good deeds, otherwise he’d get killed by himself by turning into a cat.

One of his first jobs is to help the neighbour cats. Their problem? Some crazy monster is traumatising young little cats. When Junpei meets up with Kaede after some grocery shopping, they go to a park and ofcourse, there are those cute little cats that got traumatised. It seems that Kaede is the monster: she treats them some food and then pick them up and hugs them to death. Junpei solves the problem of the traumatised cats by telling her that she shouldn’t cuddle them to death. Ofcourse, he was being threatened by cats at the time. Junpei and Kaede meet each other again at school and that’s the start of a kitty cat love.

The animation is pretty smooth and I had a lot of huge laughs. If you don’t like cats, don’t watch this. They’re all around the place. The voice acting is fine, even if there are some less known seiyuu, or at least to me they are. There’s not a real new dimension in Nyan Koi: just watch it for fun, not to see something new.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

Biribiri is back and now with a whole story around her and not the plain Touma. Mikoto, Kuroko and her friends are all living in Academy City, a city that’s all about science and education. Mikoto is one out of the seven level 5 ESP-ers. Her powers? Electrocution. Kuroko is being ms. shoujo-ai and she has the ability to teleport. Kuroko works for Judgement, a crime-prevention-like group. Then there are some new characters, some other girls from the same school as Mikoto and Kuroko go to, named Uiharu and Ruiko.

Nothing really new if you’ve watched Toaru Majutsu no Index. This is most-likely going to have some nice action scenes, as there already were some in the first episode and hm-m, let’s see… let’s hope there’ll be character development as well. I’m looking forward to see Accelerator…

So, sound and animation are okay: story needs to get started yet.

This would be it for this time. Feel free to ask me to start watching another anime from the new season: I just might if you give some nice reasons or if I simply feel like it.