Category Archives: Anime

Weekly Anime Review: Demonic Beach Volleyball

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We missed our Weekly Anime Review* post last week, as everybody was way too busy with Thanksgiving to write anything. Since we’re playing catchup, this post is much longer than usual. This problem is further exacerbated by a couple of new reviewers who have joined the team, expanding our coverage to include MM!, Kuragehime and SoreMachi. Please note that neither Project Haruhi nor its staff are responsible for any eye strain you may incur during the reading of this post.

WARNING: This product contains spoilers, pretentious hater reviews and failed attempts at comedy.  Side-effects may include ink vomit, uncontrollable flatulence, disco-themed stripper transformations, naked sky-women and diarrhea. Should you at any time begin to experience a headache and/or an erection lasting longer than four hours, please consult a physician immediately. These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. Results may vary.

*Hey, I just noticed that the acronym for Weekly Anime Review is WAR! That’s like… a pun or something.

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Nichijou Episode 0 Trailer Revealed

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A PV for Kyoani’s newest project Nichijou (Everyday in English) has been released. This trailer is for “Episode 0,” an OAD that will be bundled with the sixth volume of the manga which goes on sale in March. A full television series directed by the prolific Tatsuya Ishihara is scheduled for some undisclosed point in the future.

As I suspected earlier, this anime looks a lot like Azumanga Diaoh mixed with Lucky Star. Under Kyoani’s tutelage, this odd combination just might prove to be a successful one.

Nichijou’s plot sypnopsis:

While the title suggests a story of simple, everyday school life, the content is more the opposite. The setting is a strange school where you may see the principal wrestle a deer or a robot’s arm hide a rollcake. However there are still normal stories, like making a card castle or taking a test you didn’t study for. The art style is cute but mixes with extreme expressions and action sequences for surprising comedy bits.

Via Moetron

Bakacast – For Science!

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In this delayed-by-Thanksgiving episode of Bakacast, Jon gets buried by an avalanche of homework and reluctantly hands hosting duties to me again. As usual, rambling ensues. There’s a reason Jon’s the regular host, and I’m the adorable mascot.

So, despite having no news story or Twitter questions, we still manage to go slightly over an hour. How? Well, mostly by voicing our unanimous frustration with Kirino’s life-counseling, reminding each other of pretty much every joke we thought was funny in Panty & Stocking, wondering why the hell Tony Stark doesn’t have Professor Xavier on speed dial, explaining the premise of my new Half-Life/Squid Girl crossover fanfiction (Gordon x Cindy OTP), and comparing the end of Star Driver to Family Guy.

We cover:

  • OreImo #8
  • Panty & Stocking #8
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #8
  • Iron Man #8
  • Squid Girl #7
  • Star Driver #8

Series Review – Sora no Woto

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This guest review was written by Scott Spaziani of the Otaku in Review blog. Check out his site here, and subscribe to his podcast here.

Sora No Woto is a series that attempted to unite the two feuding cults of anime fans by combining traditional moe elements with a serious and compelling storyline. The result is a story about a young girl, Kanata, who joins the army in order to learn to play music. She is assigned to a post in the most remote part of the nation and ends up living a life of leisure in a world that has been decimated by war.

Although the production values of Sora No Woto are extremely high overall, the show doesn’t have a single original idea. This is a show crafted by committee and it shows in the most obvious places. The character designs and personality types of the main cast seem to be lifted from other popular moe shows. The main character, Kanata, looks and acts like K-ON!‘s Yui Hirasawa, and even has same musical affinity. The technically inclined but soft-spoken and shy Noël Kannagi is, in personality and character design, an obvious rip off of Haruhi’s Yuki Nagato. There elements give the show an artificial feel and are an obvious attempt at pandering to moe fans.

Read more after the break.

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Every Anime Opening Ever Made

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This fascinating AMV illustrates just how often certain tropes and images are used in anime openings. I’ve always been somewhat off-put by generic OPs, which (for me) seemed to indicate a lack of innovation by the studio’s creative team. But watching this video has made me realize that there are quite a few outstanding anime that have bland OPs. Perhaps I should heed my own advice, and not be so quick to judge a book by it’s cover?

Of course, there are shows that buck the trend and have totally unconventional openings. I’ve included a few of my favorite examples below the break, and I would love to hear yours in the comments.

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Bakacast – Live From Cybertron

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In this robot-tastic episode of Bakacast, me and my team of podcasters-in-disguise bring back the news segment to praise Ken Akamatsu’s new online manga initiative and express our concerns for its viability. Then we move our convoy on to the reviews, where the good shows are suddenly bad, the bad shows are suddenly really good, and Squid Girl continues to be the most consistently fun show of the season.

Go figure.

Oh, yeah, and I guess there are some Twitter questions where I admit to writing Final Fantasy fanfiction, Jon accidentally encourages me to imagine myself as part of an incestuous relationship between video game characters, and we unanimously decide that Evangeline A.K. McDowell is awesome.

The anime we cover are:

  • OreImo #7
  • Panty & Stocking #7
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #7
  • Samurai Girls #7
  • Iron Man #6 & 7
  • Squid Girl #6
  • Star Driver #7

The ending song for this episode is brought to you by JAM Project being awesome.

Obligatory Links
Larry’s Fanfiction
Mor3ndo’s Blog

Weekly Anime Review – More Than Meets the Eye

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Many millions of years ago, on the planet Cybertron, life existed. But not life as we know it today. Intelligent robots that could think and feel inhabited the cities. They were called Autobots and Decepticons. But the brutal Decepticons were driven by a single goal: total domination. They set out to destroy the peace-loving Autobots. And a war between the forces of good and evil raged across Cybertron, devastating everything in its path, draining its once-rich sources of energy. The Autobots, on the verge of extinction, battled to survive.

Countless eons later, Gainax made a parody of it. And it was awesome.

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Bakacast – Long Walks on the Minecraft Beach

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“What!” you exclaim. “The next Bakacast is already out?”

Yes, it’s true, dear listener. Frankly, it was embarrassing to me that I was taking a week to get each episode out, so I pushed it to the limit and finished my editing a mere two days after recording. Sadly, Jon’s mic was unusually quiet during recording, which meant I had to futz with everyone’s levels in post-production. So if our audio quality sounds a little off, that’s why. One step forward, one step back, I guess.

Oh, and guess what else?

IT’S OUR 25TH EPISODE! WOOOOOO!

We didn’t notice when we were recording, since we don’t number the podcasts anymore; but according to iTunes, we’ve done 25 of these things. No wonder my hard drive was filling up so fast.

Anyway, we celebrate this momentous occasion by…doing what we always do. We give you reviews of:

  • OreImo #6
  • Panty & Stocking #6
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #6
  • Star Driver #6
  • Squid Girl #5

And, of course, we answer your Twitter questions about pervy grandparents, Mudkips and Harrison Ford at the end.

Weekly Anime Review – Cute Squids and Stripper Demons

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Longtime readers of Project Haruhi might have noticed that we haven’t been posting a lot of anime reviews lately. This is because most of our authors, myself included, got tired of writing long screeds for every freakin’ episode of anime we watched. Therefore, we’ve decided to adopt a more streamlined format for individual episode reviews. Each author is going to write a short, two-or-three paragraph review for whichever shows they’re covering, and they will all be collected together into a single weekly column.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the inaugural edition of the Weekly Anime Review. Keep reading below the break for our cynical, jaded anime rants, then let us know what you think in the comment section!

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Bakacast – Kirino is a Jerk

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In this unusually awkward episode of Bakacast, I reveal my intimate knowledge of lesbian faeries, and the entire Bakacast crew learns the secrets of baby-making.

On the review front, we’re dumbfounded by OreImo, learn that it’s not a good idea to eat lunch while watching Panty & Stocking, randomly riff on Iron Man’s adventure IN SPAAAAACE!, and celebrate Star Driver‘s fabulousness. Also, by popular demand, I gave Bakuman another chance; though I’m guessing fans of the show will wish I didn’t.

We cover:

  • OreImo #5
  • Panty & Stocking #5
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #5
  • Iron Man #5
  • Star Driver #5
  • Squid Girl #4
  • Bakuman #2 & 3

[OP is Super Driver, ED is Tomare!, both by Cristina Vee. This post is brought to you by me listening to Queen on loop, and viewers like you.]