Category Archives: Anime

BiriBiri is Back! – A Certain Scientific Railgun OVA Review

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When I first heard there was going to be a Railgun OVA, I was disappointed. Yeah, you read that right. Unlike other fans, I was not looking forward to this. Ever since episode thirteen of the original series, I’ve been waiting impatiently for J.C. Staff to cut the filler crap and move ahead with the actual story, as laid out in the manga. The last thing Railgun needs right now is more pointless fluff. Being the pessimist that I am, I was steeling myself for more holodeck swimsuit antics and Pizza Hut product placement. Fortunately, I was wrong.

In a nutshell, this OVA was exactly like one of the better episodes of the TV series. There were lightning-lesbian antics, an urban legend-based mystery that needed solving, a personal crisis for Mikoto and the Power of Friendship™ to help save the day. Hell, you could stick this in the middle of the show itself, and it would be nigh-indistinguishable from a regular episode. This is both a good and bad thing; although this OVA is guaranteed to entertain the hardcore Railgun fans like myself, it also suffers from all the same flaws that made the original show such a hard sell for more casual viewers. This half-hour of Mikoto-filled goodness encapsulates everything that is right and wrong with the franchise as a whole.

Read more after the break.

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Bakacast – Shark Armageddon

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Did you know that the ghost shark is the ninja’s ancient nemesis? It’s true! Jon is back to educate us on this historic myth and more on this week’s episode of Bakacast. I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that these things are going to be well over an hour for the rest of the season, which I guess means we’ve finally joined the ranks of every other anime podcast. That sound you hear is my tears falling upon the altar of conformity.

That other sound you hear is from the future where every podcast listener breaks my fingers for not liking Squid Girl. Yes, I realize I have a problem! My heart is broken, and the only cure is the power of love.

In this episode, we ramble… er, talk about:

  • OreImo #4
  • Panty & Stocking #4
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #4
  • Samurai Girls #4
  • Iron Man #4
  • Squid Girl #3
  • Star Driver #4

Oh, and to anyone who clicked on that YouTube link? Good luck getting the song out of your head. Muahahahaha!

[Album Art Source]

Bakacast – Turning Japanese

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In this unusually long episode of Bakacast (no longer called “Briefs,” for obvious reasons), we bring back Twitter questions with hilarious results. For example we talk about which anime character we’d like turn into (hence our use of the classic weaboo anthem “Turning Japanese” as the intro song), genderbending, and the awesomeness that is Picard. These answers and more await, if you can manage to get through the first hour and a half!

Besides the mountain of anime we review, we also take a look at the stats Crunchyroll released recently and discuss what surprised us, what didn’t, and what trends we’d like to see in the future.

Anime covered in this episode:

  • OreImo #3
  • Panty & Stocking #3
  • Iron Man #3
  • Samurai Girls #3
  • Squid Girl #1 & 2
  • Star Driver #2 & 3
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #2 & 3

So yeah, we’re jam-packed with content, which I hope makes up for Our Glorious Leader Jon’s absence and the long wait.

OreImo 2 & 3 – Moe Done RIGHT!

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The claw is our master!

Okay, drop everything you are doing right now and listen up. I am watching only one series this fall. Yup, it has already come to this; my last ditch attempt to spin my fanboy generators to maximum, my last summoning of will to enjoy an anime series with every fibre of my being. This is in a way quite sad, as there are plenty of people enjoying this season’s other anime to their fullest. Samurai Girls, Iron Man, Sora no Otoshimono, Panty and Stocking, or whatever your vice is; none of these are doing anything for me. The fanboy generator room has instead become a place of quiet meditation and brooding. That is, until I started watching My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute. Thats when things finally started spooling.

Now Jeagle did begin to review this series a few weeks back, but has since become lost in his own little world. My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute (or OreImo for short) has quickly become my numero uno anime for this season. Witty writing and dialogue, interesting characters and a wonderful art style makes for pleasant and funny watching. I guess what makes it so out there for me is the story. Here we have Kyōsuke, the older brother, almost characterless and devoid of much emotion, at least to start off with. He is sick of being the neglected child despite being the eldest of two. Then there is Kirino, the star of the show, the younger sister, the teen goddess, and boy, doesn’t she know it. If the anime itself isn’t very pretentious, Kirino makes up for this in leaps and bounds, much to Kyōsuke’s chagrin. The catalyst that kicks off the fun is Kirino’s closet fetish for little sister eroge. Sound dangerous? I have no idea where this series is heading, but am along for the ride.

Read more after the break.

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Otaku Debate: The Most Popular Fall Anime

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Last week, Crunchyroll released a ranking of its streaming fall anime, based on their popularity. It contained a few interesting surprises.

  1. The World God Only Knows
  2. Otome Youkai Zakuro
  3. Sora no Otoshimono: Forte
  4. Super Robot Taisen OG: The Inspector
  5. Fortune Arterial
  6. Squid Girl
  7. Yumeiro Pâtissière SP Professional
  8. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
  9. Tegami Bachi Reverse
  10. Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

The World God Only Knows and Sora no Otoshimono topping the charts was pretty much expected, but seeing Super Robot Wars and Otome Youkai Zakuro ranked so highly definitely makes me scratch my head. Panty & Stocking‘s is low rating is also puzzling… perhaps more people were repulsed by it’s unique comedy than I thought. Based on the Twitter buzz I’ve been reading over the last few weeks, I had assumed the most popular shows of this season were OreImo and Squid Girl, but this list is making me rethink those assumptions.

Now I’m curious about which shows are popular among our readers. Which of the new anime do you love? Which do you hate? Does Squid Girl warm your heart? Does Panty & Stocking make you vomit? Are you just as confused by Star Driver as I am? Let me know by voting for your favorite show in the poll below, then give us your unrestrained, honest opinion in the comments!

[poll id=”19″]

Bakacast – My Little Sister Isn’t On This Podcast

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Don’t be alarmed by our avant-garde intro! Do not attempt to adjust your iPod! We control the vertical and the horizontal! We will take you on a journey to–

Okay, not really. We just wanted to have a little fun, possibly at the expense of our audience’s sanity.

Anyway, we finish up our first impressions of the new season’s anime on this episode: the longest one in Bakacast history! Which means that, yes, we don’t get around to Twitter questions for the second week in a row. But we do squeeze in a discussion about ANN’s suspiciously vague reporting on their OreImo simulcast gaffe, we cover a lot of anime:

We didn’t get around to Star Driver (not everyone was able to fit it into their viewing schedule), but rest assured that we’ll still be covering it.

[Music used in this episode is “Voyager Theme Chipmix” by ko0x.]

Squid Girl 1 and 2 – This Ink Vomit is Delicious!

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A few weeks ago, nobody had heard of Invasion! Squid Girl. It was an afterthought on the fall season chart; just another kid’s show from a no-name studio, destined to be as quickly forgotten as the latest Pokemon or Beyblade anime. Then, about a week ago, something strange happened. People started making their own squid hats, ending their tweets with ~de geso, and making jokes about tentacle rape and ink vomit. Slowly but surely, Squid Girl was gaining popularity through word-of-mouth, until it became the sleeper hit of the fall season. Naturally, as an anime blogger, I couldn’t just ignore this. I had to see what all the fuss was about for myself.

Squid Girl is easy to quantify, especially if you’re familiar with the comedy stylings of Kiyohiko Azuma. Like Azumanga Daioh, it effortlessly blends slice of life with character-based comedy, and throws in just a bit of Sgt. Frog‘s wackiness to top it all off. The result isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but still cheerful and heartwarming… definitely an enjoyable diversion from the more mature anime of this season.

The plot is fairly simple. The titular Squid Girl (also referred to as Ika Musume), is an anthropomorphised moeblob squid who lives just off the coast of Japan. Upon seeing the pollution of the sea caused by dumped garbage, she resolves to invade the surface world and punish arrogant humanity for their transgression. However, her first attempt at conquest goes horribly wrong when she runs afoul of the Aizawa family, who operate The Sea House Lemon, an open-air seaside cafe. After smashing a hole in the cafe’s wall with her hair-tentacles, Squid Girl is forced to work as a waitress to pay off the damages. This sets the stage for all manner of hijinks centered on Squid Girl’s naivete about the human world.

More after the break~de geso!

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Samurai Girls 2 – Screw the Story, We Want Fanservice!

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"I see boobs!!"

Ever since I was born, I’ve been a big fan of boobs. They’ve always continued to impress me and hold my interest without ever becoming repetitive or jumping the shark. I’d be lying if I said boobs didn’t play their part in my enjoyment of the first episode of Samurai Girls, and that trend continued in the second episode. However, as wonderful as boobs are, it’s very difficult to make a show centered around them – other elements must also keep my attention so I don’t become bored during the times when there are no boobs around. Like the first episode, this one tries to fill in the boob-less scenes with some semblance of story. However, since the initial shock of the show not being terrible has dissipated, the little flaws in the writing are becoming more evident.

This episode picks up right where the last one left off: with the sudden appearance of a well-endowed, psychotic and seriously badass female calling herself Yagyu Jubei. Even a trained ninja with a helicopter skirt is no match for her because she can run through the air on ink blots and her power level is over five million, which apparently makes her a “master samurai.” However, none of this can stand up to Muneakira yelling ‘stop,’ and our protagonists end up in the custody the vice-president of the student counsel, Princess Tokugawa Sen.

More boobs after the break! Continue reading →

Review – Otome Youkai Zakuro 1

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Tax dollars at work

This odd mix of Japanese folklore, alternate historical fiction, and shoujo romance caught my eye almost immediately during the fall season previews. I can enjoy something from just about any genre, provided it’s well-written and has interesting characters, but I’m especially fond of unique sociological settings. However, I was curbing my enthusiasm to the best of my ability following some lackluster trailers which were released a few weeks prior to the series’ premiere. My primary concern was that the show would shelve its interesting premise and instead degenerate to a standard romcom, but so far that concern seems to be unfounded. Instead this is shaping up to be an intriguing metaphor for the westernization of Japan during the early Meiji era.

The episode wastes little time on introducing the show’s premise: the various groups of youkai (which I will refer to as ‘spirits’ for the sake of English) are having difficulty adjusting to the westernization of Japan and the new Gregorian calendar in particular. Therefore, the new Meiji government charters the Ministry of Spirit Affairs, which will employ both humans from the military as well as half-human spirits in an attempt to mediate relations and help them integrate into modern society. Hilarity ensues when it comes to light that Agemaki, one of the military officers assigned to the new department, is so terrified of spirits that he can barely keep his composure in their presence.

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Review – My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute! 1

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Life with a sister is... unique.

I don’t get it. No matter how annoying, overrated and absolutely idiotic slice-of-life anime is, I keep coming back for more. With K-ON!! finally on the shelf, I found myself wanting another silly, frivolous show to fritter my time away. Preferably, I wanted one that was actually GOOD this time around–one that, unlike K-ON!!, wouldn’t fill me with an unspeakable hatred. And the result of my search was an anime with an absurdly long title: My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute!.

From the preview, this sister-love story looked fairly interesting: an anime with a tsundere who’s secretly an otaku. The episode mainly centers on the family and their characteristics. It also, of course, reveals Kirino’s secret of being an otaku, which she’s been hiding for some time because of embarrassment. She finally confesses to her brother, and he agrees to help her with any problems that may arise from her nerdiness.

Read into the review after the break. Continue reading →