Review of 2010 Anime Part 1 ~Winter~

Like last year I made it a goal to watch everything that aired this year. With a few exceptions of course. Season 2 of shows I haven't seen were counted out and shows that I had seen a lot of but knew I couldn't just stomach anymore. Yup that means no Hidamari Sketch for me this winter! I still can't stand that so many seasons of it are being made... Cobra The Animation was the only other show I didn't watch that aired. It is something I've been wanting to watch for a while and this as certainly bumped it up in my want to watch list. Here we go with Winter's Aired Anime.

Winter actually was a really short season with only 13 shows that aired. Katanagatari started but it only showed one episode per month for the entire year so I don't quite count it. Only 2 shows ended up being 24 episodes (Durarara and Qwaser) and carried onto Spring where all the others were 12-13 episodes. So everything pretty much ended for new spring anime to take over the airwaves.

Winter honestly was a pretty boring season. It had some winners but half my list is on the lower half, out of 10 score wise for only 13 series... Everything was new except for Hidamari Sketch, Cobra, and Heartcatch but since I only started Heartcatch that didn't really matter to me. I was expecting new and fresh from everything but all I got was lame and crappy for the most part.

Katanagatari did something new. Something I haven't ever really seen before. Well in more ways than one honestly. Some of it was cliche like the one episode per sword capture type deal but mostly it was unique. The art and music were amazing and not to mention that you only got one episode per month! That was something special to me. I had always honestly wondered why no one had ever really done a show like that before (There might have been but I'm too lazy to research it) spanning an entire year with 12, 45 minute episodes. Generally I hate shows that have long air dates but Katanagatari was reliable for when it was going to come out. So I knew I would get my show once a month no matter what.

Best Show of winter for me, aside from Katanagatari because that is the winner for overall best anime of 2010 was Durarara. I was looking forward to it from the moment I saw it announced. I watched the first episode and wrote a little something about it and then I actually ended up waiting till it was finished to watch anymore. I'm SO glad I waited too because there's nothing worse than waiting to see one of your favourite shows one episode at a time over many, many weeks. Some people love that but I just can't stand it with something I'm totally into.

Worst Show of winter for me would be Chu-Bra... Even though it's THE only series I have "successfully" blogged all the way through... ._. ...I love panties but not from the eyes of a 12 year old. I'm not even going to chew this anime out anymore. I think I've done that enough already. Urrg.

Here's my big list of Best to Worst shows of winter 2010:

1. Durarara 10/10
2. Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu 8/10
3. Hanamaru Youchien 7/10
4. Sora no Woto 7/10
5. Heartcatch Pretty Cure (still airing) 6/10
6. Seikon no Qwaser 5/10
7. Dance In The Vampire Bund 4/10
8. Ookami Kakushi 4/10
9. Ladies Versus Butlers 4/10
10. Omamori Himari 2/10
11. Chu-Bra 1/10

Surprise enjoyment: Hanamaru Youchien I expected to be just another one of those perverted school kid shows that everyone thinks is cute. It ended up being much, much more.

Surprise fail: Ookami Kakushi I don't even know what that was...

Honorable mentions: Cobra I honestly can't wait to sink my teeth into. I put off watching the new one because I haven't seen the old. This is something I shall be completing in the year to come for sure. Sora no Woto I actually expected to hate a lot more than I ended up. It was total win though. Well not total, it could have been a little less slice of war life like and a little more awesome even though what was there in general was pretty darn awesome. I'm still not sure of my overall thoughts of the show. Heartcatch has brought Pretty Cure back up to my magical girl standards. It was shattered with Fresh last year so I was expecting the worst. Thankfully I got the best. Seikon no Qwaser I think digiboy said it best here "purposefully awesomely bad".

A Canadians first trip to Anime Boston

So I decided to go to this con at the very beginning of the year. We have friends that live in Boston so I figured it would be a lot of fun to visit them and go to a con other than Anime North. (which is the only other con I have been to) I gotta say I was highly impressed with Anime Boston and I do plan to attend again next year. Anime Boston 2010 was held on April 2-4. I'm aware that it's been a while but I've been busy since I got back with real life situations that has delayed my post a little. (ok a lot)

We drove down from Quebec, Canada on the 1st as we wanted to get settled in a head of time and enjoy in full what the weekend had to offer. Long car rides kill my back as well so having a day to rest before trying to marathon walk for a weekend was much needed. After it all, I was nice and sore for a week after but it was worth it. We had lovely weather while we were down there too which was nice because apparently it had been raining for a solid 2 weeks before we got there. Boston drivers will always scare me. Learn how to drive please! Unlike Anime North, everything at Anime Boston was in one building that you could easily walk from one place to the other. I REALLY liked this aspect of it as I saw way more things that I wanted to because I could find where everything was easily. The building seemed to go on forever. There was a lot of walking done.

I meet the author of The Anime Almanac and he was really nice. He introduced me to some others that he knew but I completely forget their names. I saw the author of JanaiBlog from a distance because I was too shy to go up and say hi the first time I saw him (sitting in the moe panel of course) and he left early when I was going to say hi to him after the FUNimation Industry Panel. Which was a very interesting panel to attend. I ended up going to a lot more panels than I thought I would but I gotta say all were really fun. There was a manga panel with one of the weirdest guys running it and I always wanted to argue with his points because for the most part he was way off. One of the best panels I attended was done by The Department of Alchemy called Impact of Evangelion. I meet him too but said nothing other than 'hi nice panels this weekend.' And basically ran away afterwards, I'm a really shy person heh.

The highlight of the con was a performance by the Video Game Orchestra! This alone was worth all the money spent in getting to Boston for the con. Another highlight of the con was the guest of honour Nobuo Uematsu. We attended every panel he was doing and it highly inspired my boyfriend to continue what he loves doing and that's making music. He even played with the VGO when they were preforming! The most memorable things he said was the answer to this question. "How did you come up with the opening theme to Final Fantasy?" His answer was that one of the guys came to him at the last minute and said we need a little diddy for the opening of the game. Can you do one please? He of course said ok and wrote a little tune in literally 5 minutes and it has become one of the most well known songs ever among video game players. I also enjoyed his response to "What was your first instrument?" He said it was the guitar and later he picked up the piano and said they are basically the same cords/notes wise but the piano is easier to use so he prefers it. LOL awesome! Here's the video we took of him playing with the VGO. (sorry about the sound quality)

Saturday night we ventured into the "rave" and I gotta say that was entertaining and fun. There was some pretty crazy stuff going on in there and the DJ was pretty awesome too. I'm generally not one for "8-bit" music but it was fun to hear and see everyone having a really good time. The only thing that wasn't so cool was seeing all the cracked out kids sitting on the floor outside of the entrance. LOL We got a really fun little video here of some kind of robot surfing the crowd. (again sorry about the sound quality)

The cosplay was like any others honestly. There was some really amazing ones and some not so amazing. I took some pictures but most didn't turn out very well so I'll link to a thread on the AB site that has a lot more pictures than I could have ever provided for those that are interested. I did cosplay myself but it wasn't 100% and honestly I just didn't have the money to get my hair done the right way. It's not like anyone would have recognized me anyway. I went as Nanako Yamamoto from Hanamaru Youchien and my boyfriend went as Naozumi Tsuchida. I made the aprons myself and I personally think they turned out really well.

The dealers room was about what I expected it to be. It was split into 2 rooms that were joined in the middle by a hallway. I was impressed at how much stuff there was but I honestly didn't see a lot of really amazing deals. I didn't end up getting anything because we ended up spending our money on parking. We drove there each day from just outside of downtown. I suggest not doing this and using public transit or walking if you can. Hell, get dropped off and picked up at the end of the day if you can. The parking costs were stupid but couldn't be avoided on this trip for us. Next year we shall be better prepared for that.

Anyway there's my review. Better late than never! Next up is Anime North in pretty much 2 weeks. I promise to have my report from that up way sooner than this one ended up being. Overall this was a very enjoyable experience and I'm sure I'll be back next year. ^__^

365 Days of Anime Characters: Day 89/365 Nanako Yamamoto

Day 89/365

From the anime Hanamaru Youchien, Nanako Yamamoto is a teacher at the Hanamaru Kindergaten that teaches the Peach Class. The newly added teacher, Tsuchida, ends up relying on her a lot for guidance and eventually his feelings grow stronger for her. She is kind and sweet which makes everyone around love her to bits, especially the children.

Why I like her: She's fun, energetic, and always has an idea or two that she can suggest. She cares greatly for everyone around her and always tries to help out when she can.

Why I hate her: Despite this as being part of her charm, her totally clueless attitude towards  Tsuchida's romantic feelings drives me bonkers.

Overall: Gold star!

Hanamaru Youchien 06-08

It's pool time!

I only recognize her suit because of the anime Kappa no Kaikata Her shark suit was adorable as well though. I'll never tire of these outfits. Since Tsuchida only seems to have eyes for Yamamoto while at the pool side this makes Anzu sad and want attention anyway she can get it. They come up with many schemes to get Tsuchida to see Anzu instead of Yamamoto's huge breasts. They start off with a water dance.

Now it's a shark attack! Fake trouble means Anzu gets into trouble!

Children need to be careful with their wolf crying. As when something really terrible does happen adults might just think it's another false alarm and ignore it. Either way though Anzu did get the attention she wanted even if it wasn't exactly what she hoped for.

Next we have Tsuchida's sister Satsuki randomly show up... I knew they couldn't just keep this anime to adults and kindergarten... They HAD to add a high school girl in there somewhere. And of course she gives Tsuchida a hard time like all teenage sisters do to their older brothers. She is here to observe if Tsuchida is doing a good job or not being a teacher for children.

Random observation, I think these days people would freak out with a male teacher taking a girl to the bathroom like that.

Ending picture I just had to include! I love beluga whales! <3

Awesome cute ED yet again!

Summer break = Trips together!  They go to where Tsuchida and Sakura grew up by train.

Once they arrive it takes Hiiragi no time to start exploring the area and find all kinds of interesting creatures.

Sakura decides to take the children to a near by riverbed where her and Tsuchida use to spend a lot of time when they were kids just talking about anything and everything.

BOOB WARS!

Hiiragi again has a new outfit! An adorable little flounder swimsuit!

After much fun outside all day, Satsuki wishes to surprise Tsuchida with a difficult meal including gnocchi (yum!). Despite praising her when she visited him at school for her cookin,g he turns out to be dumbfounded by the gnocchi and can't figure out who made it and guesses everyone but her. This of course makes her very upset and she runs away to her room and pouts.

Summer getaways wouldn't be complete without a festival to go to. Everyone gets dressed up and hits the town in style.

And yet another ED! This one is a little odd

Their first task is to draw what they did all summer. Most draw cute pictures but one girl draws her parents working. She didn't go anywhere and just wanted to help her parents with their fish business. The children wish to learn about work so they go to her fish place to try and make him see that children can help out in the workplace as well. Super cute.

The second part of this episode Tsuchida meets Hinagiku on the street. She needs help because her shoe broke! Tsuchida helps her out and brings her to her home and now she wishes to get married to him and to be put into his class at the kindergarten.

Anzu tells Hinagiku after her meeting with Yamamoto that she should never give up on her love for Tsuchida because someday she'll grow up and be able to compete with Yamamoto (meaning her boobs).

In the end she still gives up (for now) and goes back to her home to her wonderful father that will do anything for her sweet Hinagiku.

This episode was the most boring one so far. It had it's cute moments but there just wasn't that cute wow factor in it that the rest of the episodes have had for me. This ED though is my favourite of these 3 episodes... I think it's cause of the cat and the mellow song

Hanamaru Youchien 04-05

Oh boy lots and lots of other anime references in this episode! Lum for sure. Kenshin or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei possibly? Antique Bakery I think? I'm sure there was something else as well but yeah.

That little date during recess was cute too. I liked the mud coffee... XD I use to make that too. I dunno how this show keeps finding random things that I seriously thought only I did as a kid.

Second act and Tsuchida has take a personal day so Yamamoto fills in taking his class into hers for the day. I always likes substitute teachers in school because it was a like a day off. Sure they try to keep up with the lesson but in reality everyone just sits back and has a lot of fun all day. Anzu took this opportunity to be teachers little helper for the day doing anything and everything that she could to help Yamamoto out.

I found it really odd that teacher lady would leave to go to the "bathroom" and leave that annoying little kid in charge. I know she wanted to give her the feeling of "being in charge" but I don't think that was a correct way to do it. I actually use to be like that though... always wanting to help the teacher. I even use to stay inside during recesses and cleaned stuff up for them... I was a weird kid but I suppose every kid wants to be useful in some way at that age. Eventually the day ends and most of the children go home but Anzu wishes to stay behind and help out more. It ends up turning into a little pep girl talk where Anzu brings her worries to the table that Yamamoto will steel away Tsuchida from her because she is so pretty. Yamamoto assures Anzu that she is way cuter than she ever could be and somehow Anzu is happy with that answer. lol kids.

When Tsuchida gets back after attending a wedding he is dismissed immediately at the end of the episode because all the girls have taken a liking to Yamamoto because she is a girl and they had "girl talk" a lot while he was gone so there is NO boys allowed! Super cute because that is very VERY typical at that age when it comes to school. Even more adorable because Yamamoto played along.

Here is yet another amazing ED!

Detective Conan, Evengelion, and Fullmetal Alchemist are what I spy in this episode. I rather like the cute references to other anime it this adorable little show. I also spy a Death Note reference as well... or maybe that was just me looking too hard.

I don't quite understand how the kids are able to stalk him around town and their parents not worry... Then again Anzu's mom is secretly following them so I suppose they are safe. I just know my parents would NEVER let me wander around town like that alone and I'm sure lots of other parents would agree with that. Of course it's not like the children don't get distracted at every corner while in stalk mode. So it's probably even better that Anzu's mom was stalking them in return. XD

The random encounter with the trash thug mafia type guys who have signs on their backs with safety pins was VERY random.

Little kids falling in love with others is cute. Well not so much love at that age but crushes. Especially if the boy/girl is in the same class.The girls gather around to figure out a way to help their friend confess to this boy before something terrible happens like moving away or alien abduction.

Anzu's big way to help her friend confess was to tell her to tell him "hold me" because that's how her mom did it with her day. Kids don't even understand what that means at that age. At least it all works out in the end and they run off to play in the school yard together.

And of course we are given yet another cute ED. I'll never get tired of how awesome these are. I think they are one of the best parts of this show!

Next Page »