Kaiba 04 – all the unfinished business that you left behind

May 10th, 2008

It’s been a long, long time since an anime has gotten me this emotionally attached to it.

Read the rest of this entry »

kodomo no jikan: little children

May 7th, 2008

Before I actually picked up the nominally controversial Kodomo no Jikan and read it, I had heard so many interesting things about the series. And most of what I picked up through the grapevines go something like this: child porn, fan service gone too far, immoral justification of pedophilia, cannot be licensed due to being inappropriate for US audiences.

So eventually [inevitably] I got the manga, read it, and found that I have much to say about it.

Kodomo no Jikan [A Child’s Time] is about an elementary school teacher who gets assigned to his first class of 3rd graders. In the class is Rin, problem child extraordinaire, who develops strong feelings towards him and goes to great lengths to seduce him. Lengths that include (but are not limited to): sexual extortion, nude cell phone pictures, spermy haikus, exhibition of various loli parts, and… you get the gist that series is a step up from your standard ecchi. That’s the synopsis in a nutshell.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kaiba [01]: this is how we operate

April 30th, 2008

This entry is also cross-posted at THAT Animeblog. Impz recruited me over the past weekend and kindly introduced me to a number of bloggers on #AB, all of whom have been quirky and memorable in their own ways. Future anime editorials will be posted both here and over at THAT. Although I will update this blog more often with my own thoughts and opinions on a variety of Japanese media in which my entries will be a lot more free with the crazies and the personal because the mentality is –> my blog, my comfort, my freedom of expression. Now to get to the topic at hand.

Originally, I was scared that the series wasn’t going to get subbed because it was so radically different from mainstream anime. So I was ecstatic when I found out that Ureshii and Froth-Bite have picked up the series. The amount of time and effort they put into their work is remarkable and it really shows through the excellent quality and wonderful subs in Kaiba. A big thank you to the people over at Ureshii and F-B subs. And now onto the spoils of their hard labor.

Read the rest of this entry »

hiroki endo - hang

April 21st, 2008

hiroki endo – hang

an iron hook / we had to fasten him with a hook / we had to tell him something / with a hook / while the dirty floating bundle / fell / drop / by / drop / from where the / missing / would fling a stone upon us
Read the rest of this entry »

moving in

April 17th, 2008

Just finished tinkering with the various design options of wordpress, which are actually quite limited and disappointing. But maybe that has more to do with the fact that I’m not very computer savvy so things like web design and HTML coding intimidate the hell out of me. I was actually going to wait awhile before I posted my first entry because I haven’t figured out what my objectives for this blog are. But the blog felt depressingly empty, like a new house without any furnitures. So I went ahead and wrote up this non-entry to fill in the blankness and make this cyberspace a little bit more cozy.

One of the anime that I will definitely be blogging about is Kaiba (from Masaaki Yuasa, director of Kemonozume). I have been looking forward to this anime ever since I read Bateszi’s entry, written back in March and watched the 15 second teaser he linked to.

My taste in anime have always tended towards the series that are marginalized from the limelight of mainstream anime due to their deviation from the criterion of fan service and consumer demands. I have a soft spot for series like Princess Tutu, Honey & Clover, and Welcome to the NHK! These underdogs are often overlooked and underhyped because of the unconventional subject matters that they deal with. Apparently fairy tale mythology, college life, and hikikomori aren’t hot topics that would attract a large audience. Understandable. Different folks, different strokes. Idealistically, I want to say that no anime series is better than another and that each has its own flaws and merits, but that’s a loaded statement that I can’t and wouldn’t want to stand by.

Besides Kaiba, I am also hoping to get into Dennou Coil, which I know is last season’s anime. I never got around to watching it while it was airing due to lack of time and will. I’ve heard so many good things about it, but I’m afraid that my friends might have overhyped it for me. I hope I won’t be disappointed. From all that I’ve heard and read, it seems like it would be worthwhile to delve into.

And… that will conclude my ramblings for this first post. Sorry for the lack of structure and coherency. Next post will be more focused. Thank you for reading and happy anime viewing.