Death Note 01 and 02 Sunday, Oct 22 2006

First of all, let me just say I’d been hanging out for this to be made into an anime since I started reading the manga.

Second of all… Hmmmm, nah, that’s it!

Death Note is superb – it sticks to the manga storyline flawlessly, the characters were well drawn, the voices seem to be pretty well cast (though I did balk slightly at the fact that the same guy that did ‘Tamaki’ from Ouran was doing ‘Light’) and Ryuk the Shinigami doesn’t look crap.

Episode 01 pretty much covered all of chapter 01 of the manga.

• Ryuk telling the other Shinigami he’d lost his deathnote down on earth
• Light finding it, and experimenting with it a couple of times
• Ryuk flying down to earth to find the book and the human using it
• Light and Ryuk’s meeting – Ryuk finding out that Light has written pages and pages of criminals names in the book already
• Light explaining his theory of the utopian society, with him ruling over it
• Ryuk chuckling evilly and stating that ‘Human’s are… fun.’

Death Note 02 covered chapter 02 of the manga – funny that…

• Light rigging his hidden drawer so that if anyone finds the death note, it will self destruct in a localised petrol fire
• The police conference where it is decided that they will be looking for help to solve the ‘Kira’ case from the ever elusive ‘L’
• ‘L’ asking the police for their assistance, and also telling them he’s getting the FBI involved to help them find ‘Kira’, the man killing off all the criminals
• The nationwide TV press conference where ‘L’ appears on TV, daring ‘Kira’ to kill him
• Light takes the bait, and writes the name of the man on the screen in the death note – sure enough he keels over
• ‘L”s logo appears on the screen, saying the man that just died was not ‘L’ but a prisoner who was to be put to death that day – he also states that the press conference was not nationwide, but broadcast locally so as to narrow down where the suspect is
• ‘L’ dares ‘Kira’ to try and kill him again – Since Light doesn’t know what ‘L’ looks like, or his real name, this is impossible for him
• The two men stare into their respective TV screens, and speak the same sentence – ‘I am Justice!’

That about covers both of those – I’ve acquired the third episode, but haven’t watched it yet.

However, I think I have to say that Death Note is definitely one of my favourites for this season!

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Anyone who posted comments… Sunday, Oct 22 2006

This is just for anyone who’s posted questions or comments so far – I’ve answered all or most of these on the particular post the comment was posted on.

Hopefully I’ve been helpful 🙂

If not… Ah well, can’t be helped!

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Enter the Trend-Ender! Part 01: Ouran Episodes 1-5 Sunday, Oct 22 2006

As usual, I’ve done it again. I’ve come in at the end of a trend. Well, the end of a series this time, actually…

So I take it by now that everyone’s heard of ‘Ouran High School Host Club’? I just discovered this show last week, and what can I say but I’m hooked!

Haruhi Fujioka is a newly enrolled high school student at the Ouran Academy, a school where two most important aspects for all the students are 1) wealth and 2) prestige. Haruhi has a big fat zero on both accounts seeing as she’s a scholarship student from a ‘regular’ family. While looking for a quiet place to study, she opens the door to the Third Music Room, and is shocked to discover a group of handsome boys, referring to themselves as the Ouran High School Host Club. In her haste to escape molestation from Tamaki Suou, the host King, she knocks over a vase worth $80 000 (8 million Yen), and is forced to become the host club’s dog/baldrick/slave until her debt is repaid. Thus begins Haruhi’s misadventures in the Ouran High School Host Club!

This has actually got to be one of the first anime series’ I’ve seen in a while that I’ve laughed out loud at almost every episode. Here’s a list of episode highlights!

Ep 01 – You are a Host Starting Today!

• The look on Haruhi’s face as she’s labelled the Host Club’s dog
• The clueless innocence of the rich girl’s who’ve never heard of ‘instant coffee’ (head tilts to the side, while saying questioningly ‘Instanto?’)
• Haruhi’s ‘Commoner coffee preparation by a commoner’ followed by her derisive ‘Damn rich bastards’ mumbled comment
• Lightbulbs! Hehehe, and the order of everyone who realised! (First, Kyouya – well, he knows everything about everybody, so duh! Then Hani, closely followed by Hikaru and Kaoru, then Mori, and last but not least our Host King, Tamaki!)
• Tamaki’s famous line of realisation ‘Haruhi… You’re a girl…’ followed by him turning beet red.

Ep 02 – A High School Host’s Work

• The look on Haruhi’s face as she walks into the Third Music room to discover a tropical paradise (A mixture of ‘shock!’ and ‘what the hell have these idiots done now?’)
• Tamaki getting depressed over losing clients to Haruhi, then him demanding she goes back to her girly ways – stresses his point by whipping out an enlargement of her 9th grade photo when she still had long hair, and was wearing the girl’s school uniform
• Tamaki getting depressed again when he can’t be the one to teach Haruhi how to waltz
• The entire host club kidnapping Haruhi and dressing her up as a girl – and Tamaki’s reaction, of course…
• The first kiss debacle – although Haruhi does get her 8, 000, 000 Yen debt cut by a third!

Ep 03 – Be careful with Physical Examinations

• During the Host club’s cherry blossom veiwing festival, Kyouya wanders about selling photo collections of all the members (while the members try and figure out when the photos were taken in the first place!)
• Tamaki suddenly realizes that the twins spend more time together with Haruhi than he does… and Kyouya wonders why he didn’t realize this earlier
• Physical examination day comes along – and the boys create a plan to hide Haruhi’s gender (plan includes Tamaki cosplaying as Haruhi – laughter ensues)
• Tamaki’s ‘inner-mind theatre’ results in him deciding that he and Haruhi are the main romantic leads, and all the other guys are ‘homo side characters’ (pretty much fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this line!)
• The twin’s ‘red card’ Tamaki for harrassing Haruhi during her examination

Ep 04 – The Invasion of the Female Manager

• Episode opens with a girl playing an RPG on her computer, where one of the characters freakily resembles Kyouya – her father comes home, shows her a photo of his business partner’s family, and wouldn’t you know it, Kyouya is in the photo.
• The girl leaps into her private plane and heads to Japan to meet her prince
• Haruhi discovers that Hikaru, Kaoru and possibly Hani have all been using eyedrops for their dewy expressions – Tamaki denies that he has, stating that all his tears are real
• Haruhi refers to Kyouya as an evil magistrate
• Girl from france – Renge – shows up, she’s stating that she’s Kyouya’s fiancee. Kyouya flatly denies this
• Renge decides to change all of the host clubs characters – Tamaki, Kaoru and Hikaru all look at her, completely horrified, and call her an ‘Otaku’ (RPG gaming nerd in this case!)
• Somehow the character changing turns into a film shoot – Renge gets attacked by two of her ‘extras’ and is saved by Haruhi – Renge suddenly decides her favourite is now Haruhi instead of Kyouya, which distresses Tamaki to no end!

Ep 05 – The Twins Fight

• We’re introduced to the ‘Which one is Hikaru-kun Game!’ where the clients have to guess which twin is which – Haruhi get’s it right with no problems, stating that the way she can tell them apart is that ‘Hikaru’s actions are 1 level meaner than Kaoru’s’
• We’re also introduced to Nekozawa, of the black magic club, seller of ‘Beelzenef’ voodoo dolls! Tamaki is certain he was cursed the previous year for stepping on Beelzenef in the school hallway, but Kyouya states that he wasn’t.
• The twin’s then get into an argument, finally calling each other an ‘erotic imp!’ and a ‘pervert!’, while finishing up with a ‘I’m not talking to you any more!’
• They show up at school the next day, Hikaru with bright pink hair, and Kaoru with blue – every time they see each other they start a riot, throwing everything in sight, including Hani’s bunny doll, Hani himself, Mori at one point, and Tamaki (covered in food from the food fight they start)
• Tamaki’s ‘inner mind theatre’ travels to a place where Haruhi is providing him with a heart shaped lunch box – decides to try and steal Haruhi’s lunch, which she has given to Hikaru as he want’s something different from Kaoru – hence the food fight.
• Kaoru whips out a Beelzenef voodoo doll, ans begins to write Hikaru’s name on the back – Haruhi whacks them both on the head, and tells them to stop being stupid or they won’t be able to visit her house
• The two boys smile craftily, and make a huge show of making up – the entire fight was fake, all they really wanted was to go to Haruhi’s house on their next holiday. Tamaki states that twin’s with time on their hands truly are devils.

That’s the end of part one of the trend-ender post – right now it’s time for eats! Then I’ll watch some more episodes of Ouran! Wheeee!

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Manga of the Day: Trinity Blood! Sunday, Oct 8 2006

All righty! *rubs hands together*

*Cheesy salesperson mode – on*

Who likes Vampires? And Cyborgs? And Priests? And Nuns? And Guns?

Well, they’re all here together in Trinity Blood!

*Cheesy salesperson mode – off*

First off, our main characters:

Father Abel Nightroad – A priest from Rome, sent to assist one of the outlying churches in their fight against the evil beings of the night. He appears to be a clumsy, bumbling fool, but this is just a front to hide what he really is…

Sister Esther – The sweet little nun with a vendetta against vampires.

Deitrich – Esther’s offsider: Creepy little german kid, bad to the bone (I know that’s a spoiler, but hey! It’s in the first volume!)

Tres Iqus (Father Tres) – human/cyborg/gunslinger/all of the above – very cool, and cybertronic with his speech eg. ‘Damage report, Father Abel Nightroad!’

Lord Gyula – Stereotypical bad dude eg. good looking, evil, vampire, has a great big missile launcher and is not afraid to use it. All for the sake of his dead wife… *sighs* poor little evil genius…

Synopsis:

Set in a post-apocalyptic-ish world, where vampires and humans live in constant battle with each other. Father Abel Nightroad is sent to help fight against the evil Lord Gyula. He joins up with Sister Esther and Dietrich, fellow fighters in the same war. When the chapel is attacked by a vampire, both Esther and Dietrich are incapacitated, leaving only the bumbling Father Nightroad to fend for himself.

But what’s this? Father Nightroad isn’t as much of a bumbler as we thought! Why is the vampire scared of him? And what exactly is a ‘Crusnik’?

The trio narrowly escape the church being blown up, and travel on to Lord Gyula’s castle. Gyula seems to have a weapon of ‘old technology’ as they call it (looks like some kind of nuclear missile launcher, but who am I to ponder!). They fight with Gyula, and eventually find out that maybe he’s not as bad as they all thought he was!

So who is the bad guy behind all of this? Will Nightroad be able to keep his ‘Crusnik’ form secret from Esther? Will Tres speak in anything other than a monotone?

Find the scans for yourself and read on!

Rating: 4 ‘damage reports!’ out of 5! I love all the characters, looking at the manga doesn’t make my brain hurt (eg. the pages aren’t too crowded or busy!) And the storyline is pretty original! No complaints here!

I had to read scanlations of this as I can’t find Trinity Blood in stores yet, but I stand firmly on my ‘Support the writer’s/artist’s by buying the real thing as soon as it becomes available’!

Catherine G

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Death Note subs are out! Sunday, Oct 8 2006

OH YEAH!

In the process of ‘acquiring’ Death Note 01 with subs, so hopefully a review should be popping up any day now! Stay tuned!

*20-something minutes later*

That was so cool!

And here are the reviews for Eps 1-4!

https://catherineg.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/death-note-01-and-02/

https://catherineg.wordpress.com/2006/11/14/death-note-03-and-04/

Woohoo! 🙂

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New Anime! (Just waiting on the subs now!) Friday, Oct 6 2006

Ah ha! What’s new? You may ask, and this is what I’ve found so far:

• Ghost Hunt
• Red Garden
• DeathNote
• Negima!
• La Corda D’Oro ~Primo Passo~

I wish it didn’t take them so long to sub them – then again, they want each episode to look excellent before they release it, so I guess it’s for our own good!

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Anime of the Day/Week/Month/Year: Chevalier! Wednesday, Oct 4 2006

It seems that I stand with all the other bloggers reviewing anime on this point: Le Chevalier D’Eon is by far the best anime I’ve seen so far this year!

So far I’ve ‘acquired’ episodes 1-3 and am in the process of getting episode 4 and 4. Let’s just say I hope the folks subbing these continue subbing them at light speed because we can’t get enough!

Synopsis:

Episode 01

The setting is France, the time of Louis the XV’s reign. The main character (who VO’s the episodes) is d’Eon de Beaumont, and the opening scene shows us how the body of his sister, Lia de Beaumont, washed ashore on the river Seine, sending him on his quest to find her killers and to bring the truth to Paris.

The first fifteen minutes of this show have so much plot and back story stuffed into them it’s insane – however, you don’t end up feeling like your head is going to explode, because the storyline is just so darned good! So, during this fifteen minutes we see:

• Lia de Beaumont’s body being washed up to the riverbank in a coffin marked with the word ‘Psalms’
• d’Eon de Beaumont (our hero) delivering a message to the king of france
• At least two different secret societies working out of Paris
• We meet most of the main characters (King, Queen, d’Eon, Anna, Bernice etc)
• Dead bodies in barrells (ooooh!) marked with unknown runes
• Possibly some evil Russians…

The next five minutes were the ‘Oh, I didn’t see that one coming!’ part of the show. Interesting plot twists ensued!

• Did somebody mention gargoyles?
• And reanimated dead folks?
• And a talking skull?

And the last two minutes of the show, well let’s just refer to that as the ‘OMG!!’ section, and be done with it – just find it and watch it, no more spoilers here!

Rating: 5 doesn’t seem to be high enough!! Waaah! All right though, 5 “aristocratic swordsman” out of 5!

The animation itself is fantastic, not too much of the 3D fancy stuff, but enough to make you go ‘ooooh!’ at some points. The characters themselves seem to be well written, and are drawn to perfection, especially Lia de Beaumont who looks absolutely gorgeous (for a dead lady in a coffin, that is!)

After watching four epsiodes, I’m completely hooked, and need more! Now!

Catherine G

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Anime of the… Weak (I know it’s misspelled!): Fushigi Yuugi (The Mysterious Play) Monday, Oct 2 2006

Or, as I like to refer to it, ‘Where, oh where, is my insulin, because I am about to die of a sugar overdose!’

Ok, so I’m a little embittered over my Fushigi Yuugi experience *sighs*. It’s just that this entire anime could have been done so much better!

Well, it wasn’t all bad – I watched the whole thing in the space of a week, that included the two specials, and I think I just overdosed on it. If I’d spread it out a bit more it probably wouldn’t have been as bad, hehehe. So onto the series!

Fushigi Yuugi: The Mysterious Play

15 year old Miaka Yuuki, along with her best friend Yui Hongo, gets sucked into a book named ‘The Universe of the four Gods’. They both end up in a strange land, oddly reminiscent of ancient China (well, not ancient, but old time-ish). Due to a series of unfortunate events, the girls end up bitter enemies, and each are recognised as the fabled priestesses called upon by two of the four country’s God’s: Miaka as the priestess of Suzaku and Yui as the priestess of Seiryu.

Most of the series covers the race to call up the two gods, and to gather the trinkets and allies needed to do so, but there was a lot of focus on the love triangle between Miaka, Yui and the boy they both seemed to fall for, Tamahome. *Yawns*

The series could have fared a lot better without Miaka’s childish whining, too.

Fushigi Yuugi: Oni Special

Now THIS was slightly better! Both Miaka and Yui are older, and the story line was slightly darker!

At the end of the first series, Yui called forth Seiryu, and was engulfed and nearly died in the process, hence… Miaka and Suzaku to the rescue! Tamahome was sent back to ancient China, but he apparently managed to make it somehow into the the present to be with Miaka *sighs*.

They go to visit the graves of the previous two priestesses, Suzano the priestess of… um… something, and Takiko the priestess of Genbu. (Memory lapse, sorry!)

Suddenly, Tamahome is sucked back into the universe of the four gods, Miaka closely following him.

Oddly enough, a lot of the original Fushigi Yuugi storyline is re-hashed, even though most of the original characters died in the first story arc (they came back as ghosts!) but in a more adult fashion.

Many fight scenes and love declarations later, Miaka and Tamahome are separated once again, both to their separate worlds, only (oddly enough) to be re-united again somehow in Miaka’s modern times Japan!

By this point, I’m getting the distinct impression that Yuu Watase (the author of the manga) really wants these two characters to be together – then again, I could be wrong!

Fushigi Yuugi: Eikoden Special

Anyone call for more of the same? You bet they did! At least this special was only four episodes long. So, at long last we arrive at the point when Miaka and Taka (Tamahome’s modern equivalent’s name) have gotten married and are expecting a baby. Happiness ensues, right? Wrong-o!

Enter one of Taka’s students (he’s a sport’s coach). This student is madly in love with him, and can’t stand to see him experiencing happiness with another woman. Somehow she stumbles upon the ‘Universe of the Four God’s’ novel, and tries to become the new Priestess of Suzaku, to try and erase Miaka’s existence altogether.

Admittedly the premise was good, but still way too much sugar.

The series could have been a lot better – if it had concentrated more on the quest to call for Suzaku and Seiryu then the love triangles and petty tiffs, it would have been excellent! Or maybe I’m just too jaded – Give me ‘Juuni Kokki’ (The Twelve Kingdoms) any day!

So anyway, rating… Err… 2 “Chibi ChiChiri’s” out of 5 – could have been better, but worth a glance if there’s nothing else on!

Catherine G

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How to get Full Metal Alchemist Manga! Sunday, Oct 1 2006

Ok Sandra, this one’s for you! Read the following sentence very carefully, it should tell you everything you need to know!

Of all the .com websites I’ve visited recently, stoptazmo would seem to have the greatest range of manga available.

Yep, everything you need to know to acquire the FMA manga is in the above sentence! Good luck!

I still firmly believe in supporting the industry, and continue to purchase manga from book stores every pay day! Woohoo!

Catherine G

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